


ARTHUR JUDSON BROWtsf 



REViSED EDITION 




Class " BV ^06 
Book -JLIL 



Copyright N°. 



Ka-1 



COFflRSGKT DEPOSIT. 




President Stuart of Peking University and Mr. Wang 
Li Yuan, Editor of the " Tientsin Times " 

A greeting significant of the spirit of world friendship which the 
missionary is bringing to pass. 



THE WHY AND HOW 

OF 

FOREIGN MISSIONS 



By ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN 



M 



Author of The Mastery of the Far East, 
Russia in Transformation, The Foreign 
Missionary, Rising Churches in Non- 
Christian Lands, Unity and Missions 



Revised Edition 



NEW YORK 
MISSIONARY EDUCATION MOVEMENT 
OF THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA 






COPYRIGHT, 1921, BY 

MISSIONARY EDUCATION MOVEMENT OF THE 

UNITED STATES AND CANADA 



g)CI.A622413 



"ViO 



I 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I Foreign Missions and World Recon- 
struction i 

II The Foreign Missionary Motive and 

" Aim 27 

III Foreign Missionary Administration . 46 

IV The Missionary — Qualifications and 

Appointment 71 

V The Missionary at Work .... 96 

VI The Native Church 122 

VII The Missionary Enterprise and Its 

Critics . 143 

VIII The Home Church and the Enterprise 174 
Bibliography . . . . . . .194 

Index 199 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



PAGE 

President Stuart and Mr. Wang Li Yuan . . Frontispiece 

Colporteur in northern Africa 34 

Nurses training class in Korea ....... 58 

The missionary on the road 74 

Carpentry class in Africa 106 

A Christian church in Mexico City , 130 

Library at Ginling College 154 

Department of Physics, Lucknow College 154 

Plan of Peking University 186 



J 



/ 



Preface 

The first edition of this book was prepared in 
1908 in compliance with a request of the Young 
People's Missionary Movement for a succinct state- 
ment of the modern foreign missionary enterprise 
for busy people and mission study classes. About 
sixty thousand copies have been sold and many hun- 
dreds of mission study classes and summer confer- 
ences have used it in their courses. As the demand 
continues and as recent events have made many 
changes, not only in statistics but in problems and, 
to some extent at least, in points of view, this re- 
vised edition has been prepared. The design is to 
present the motives that prompt to foreign mis- 
sionary effort, the objects that are sought, the 
methods of handling funds, the kind of persons ap- 
pointed, the work that they are doing, the difficulties 
they encounter, the spirit they manifest, and the 
changing world conditions caused not only by the 
religious but by the political, commercial, and intel- 
lectual movements of our age and by the World 
War. 

Those who are familiar with the author's larger 
book, The Foreign Missionary (Revell), will note 
that some of the material for this book has been 
taken from that volume. The present work, how- 
ever, is not a condensation of the other nor is it 



VI 



PREFACE 



intended to take its place. The Foreign Missionary 
remains not only as a work of reference, but as the 
preferable volume for student volunteers, mission- 
aries, and others who desire a fuller discussion of 
the problems involved. Chapter I utilizes parts of 
a chapter in a volume by the author entitled, The 
Mastery of the Far East (Scribners), in which this 
important question is given fuller consideration. 

In adapting the material to the special purpose 
that it is designed to serve I gladly acknowledge the 
invaluable assistance of Mr. B. Carter Millikin, 
Educational Secretary of the Presbyterian Board of 
Foreign Missions,. Dr. T. H. P. Sailer, Professor 
of Missions in Teachers College, Columbia Univer- 
sity, and Mr. Franklin D. Cogswell of The Mis- 
sionary Education Movement. 

Arthur Judson Brown. 

156 Fifth Avenue, New York City. 
March 1, 1921. 



FOREIGN MISSIONS AND WORLD 
RECONSTRUCTION 

A world faith. The necessity for the foreign mis- 
sionary enterprise has never been more clear than 
at this time when the world must be reconstructed 
after the havoc of a terrible war. 

We should first of all remind ourselves what the 
foreign missionary enterprise is. It is not some- 
thing extraneous to the Church, an outside object 
to be given an occasional collection as convenience 
may serve. It is an integral part of the object for 
which the Church exists. What is the Church for 
if not to preach the gospel throughout the world 
and to apply its principles to humanity's problems? 

Where is the gospel to be preached? At home, 
of course. Those who are connected with foreign 
missions are as deeply concerned as anyone in the 
evangelization of our own land. This is not only 
because they themselves are American Christians, 
but because the home church is the base of the for- 
eign missionary. We must pervade our own land 
with the spirit and principles of Jesus. But our land 
only? This was the perversion of the Pharisees, 
who maintained that Jehovah was distinctively the 
God of the Hebrews. Our Lord's thought was for 



a THE WHY AND HOW OF FOREIGN MISSIONS 

the world. He told his disciples to " begin at 
Jerusalem," but to go on to " the uttermost parts 
of the earth." What was it that the angel said? 
11 Behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which 
shall be to all the people." The program of the 
Church has been a universal one from the begin- 
ning. No local duty was to narrow its scope; Chris- 
tianity stands or falls as a world faith. To take 
the elements of universality out of it would be to 
reduce it to the level of the non-Christian faiths. 
If the Church is to be true to its divine mission, its 
program must be world wide. 

Foreign missions are the realization of the world 
program of the Church of God, the international 
mind upon the highest level, and the emancipation 
of the Church from the parochial and provincial 
into the wide spaces of the Kingdom of God. The 
Church was slow to realize its full mission, but 
gradually the splendid conception of a world-con- 
quering gospel became clearer. Today the foreign 
missionary enterprise is the vastest work of the 
Church, as the facts that are given on other pages 
abundantly prove. 

The reconstructive force of Christian missions. 
Everywhere Christian missions have gone, they have 
been a reconstructive force, a force that operates 
with less noise than political and economic forces, 
but that is, nevertheless, the most pervasive and re- 
constructive of all forces. Others effect changes in 
externals; but this effects an internal transforma- 



FOREIGN MISSIONS AND RECONSTRUCTION 3 

tion. Others may make man a more decent animal 
and give him greater efficiency in the struggle for 
supremacy. But " if any man is in Christ, he is a 
new creature." This transformation involves not 
only the man himself, but all his relationships. 
" Behold, I make all things new." The missionary 
objective was finely expressed by St. Peter when he 
wrote : " We look for ... a new earth wherein 
dwelleth righteousness." The men of Thessalonica 
uttered a profounder truth than they knew when 
they complained that Paul and Silas had " turned 
the world upside down"; because it was wrong 
side up. 

An economic force. Missions are a reconstruc- 
tive economic force. Others besides missionaries 
have had a large part in this phase of the recon- 
structive process, but the missionaries have been 
potent influences. Lamps, kerosene oil, watches, 
clocks, furnaces, glass windows, sewing machines, 
and other conveniences for their houses attracted 
attention; likewise agricultural implements for their 
gardens and machinist's tools for their industrial 
schools, improved machinery and methods for the 
printing presses, — all contributed toward creating 
and developing desire. The missionaries sought no 
profit from these opening markets. But traders 
quickly turned them to commercial advantage and 
built up business interests which were of large value 
to Eastern and Western nations alike. Said former 
President William H. Taft: "You are pioneers in 



4 THE WHY AND HOW OF FOREIGN MISSIONS 

pushing Christian civilization into the Orient, and it 
has been one of the great pleasures of my life that I 
have had to do with these leaders of yours who 
represent your interest in China, India, the Philip- 
pines, and in Africa. These men are not only 
bishops and ministers, they are statesmen. They 
have to be. They make their missions centers of 
influence such as to attract the attention of native 
rulers. The statistics of conversions do not at all 
represent the enormous good they are doing in 
pushing Christian standards and advancing high 
civilization in all these far-distant lands." 

A social force. That missions are a reconstruc- 
tive social force, we shall note in some detail in a 
later chapter. They have effected striking changes 
in the popular attitude toward woman, in the status 
of the wife, in the education of girls, in the care of 
the sick, and in creating a sentiment against harmful 
drugs. William Elliott Griffis, who lived in Japan 
in the old feudal days, says that conditions at that 
time were unspeakably bad, that old Japan had no 
principle of regeneration; and he quotes approv- 
ingly a statement of Dr. Guido F. Verbeck's that 
new Japan came from across the sea with mis- 
sionaries. 

The defective and dependent classes were almost 
wholly neglected until the missionaries came with 
their humanitarian teaching and Christlike min- 
istries. It was the missionary who first showed 
interest in the blind, the deaf and dumb, the 



FOREIGN MISSIONS AND RECONSTRUCTION 5 

orphaned, the leprous, the sick, and the insane. In- 
stitutions for their care are scattered all over Asia, 
and all of them were founded either directly by mis- 
sionaries or indirectly as the result of their teachings. 
Mr. V. K. Wellington Koo, former Chinese Minister 
to Washington, has emphasized " the influence of the 
missionaries as a factor in the social regeneration of 
China. Many of the epoch-making reforms, such as 
the suppression of opium and the abolition of foot- 
binding, have been brought about with no little en- 
couragement and help from them. Their hospitals 
and dispensaries not only give shelter, comfort, and 
peace to hundreds of thousands of the sick and suffer- 
ing, but also serve as centers from which radiate with 
increasing luminosity the light of modern medical 
science." This testimony is as applicable to other 
lands as to China. Professor Inazo Nitobe, of the 
Imperial University in Tokyo, after recounting the 
indebtedness of Japan to Christianity for schools, 
hospitals, and churches, added: " The leaders of 
the campaign to promote sanitation and hygiene, of 
the anti-prostitution movement, and of the temper- 
ance societies are recruited from among the Chris- 
tians." 

An intellectual force. Missions are a reconstruc- 
tive intellectual force. The missionary has planted 
the church and the school side by side. He is a 
teacher as well as a preacher. The first modern 
schools in the Far East were founded by mission- 
aries, and their present schools are among the best 



6 THE WHY AND HOW OF FOREIGN MISSIONS 

today. It is sometimes said that modern science 
has been the chief factor in the intellectual awaken- 
ing of Asiatic lands; but it was the missionary who 
first took modern science to those lands, who trans- 
lated the textbooks, taught the sciences, and ex- 
plained the uses of steam and electricity. Mr. C. T. 
Wang, Vice President of the Chinese Senate, writes : 
" The mission schools throughout the country have 
led the way and in many cases have been the cradle 
of the modern Chinese educationists. In all the po- 
litical upheavals people find that those students who, 
through their touch with the mission schools have 
embraced the real spirit of love and sacrifice of 
Jesus Christ, are the ones that can best be trusted." 

Substantially the same words might have been 
written of Japan. Missionaries were its first edu- 
cators, founded its first schools, translated its first 
textbooks, and compiled its first grammars. In 
Korea practically the entire educational movement 
of the country was organized, directed, and main- 
tained by missionaries until recent years. The gov- 
ernments in the Far East have now undertaken 
large educational programs of their own, but their 
officials unhesitatingly testify that they were indebted 
to missionaries for the suggestions and impetus, for 
the best textbooks, and for the most highly qualified 
teachers. 

A moral force. Missions are a reconstructive 
moral force. They make plainer the distinction 
between right and wrong, clarify conscience, and 



FOREIGN MISSIONS AND RECONSTRUCTION 7 

quicken desire to do right. The light of Christianity 
makes virtue appear more attractive and vice more 
vile. There is evil in every land where Christianity 
exists; but it is there in spite of Christianity, not 
because of it. The most prejudiced critic knows 
that Christ should not be judged by the conduct 
of those who reject him, or by those who, while 
professing to accept him, show by their actions that 
they have only partially or nominally done so. The 
consistent Christian is a clean man, advocating good, 
hating wrong, fighting intemperance, gambling, dis- 
honesty, and the social evil, purifying the moral 
atmosphere of the community, and furnishing the 
type of reliability that is indispensable to the sta- 
bility of the State. 

Bishop Awdry, the English bishop of South 
Tokyo, says that in the war between Russia and 
Japan, the Japanese Government ruled that all na- 
tive interpreters who accompanied foreign corre- 
spondents must be Christians, and that this action 
was taken on the ground that for this important 
post men of absolute reliability were desired, who 
would fairly represent the interests of Japan. It is 
not surprising that Sir Ernest Satow, for many 
years the British Ambassador to Tokyo, and a rec- 
ognized authority on Japanese matters, said: "In 
Japan, Christianity is now recognized as a very 
great moral motive in the national life." 

A political force. Missions are a reconstructive 
political force. With politics as such, missionaries 



8 THE WHY AND HOW OF FOREIGN MISSIONS 

have nothing to do. They carefully avoid political 
affiliations. Mission boards do not encourage ap- 
peals to officials nor do they seek the aid of their 
own consular and diplomatic representatives except 
in cases of urgent need which involve necessary 
treaty rights. The missionaries . strongly believe 
that all due respect should be paid to the lawfully 
constituted civil authorities, that care should be ob- 
served not to embarrass them needlessly, that the 
laws of the land should be obeyed, and that it is 
better for the followers of Christ patiently to en- 
dure some injustice than to array the churches in 
antagonism to the governments under which they 
labor. 

On the other hand, Christianity is always and 
everywhere a reorganizing force. It may not pro- 
duce this result so quickly among a conservative as 
among a progressive people; but sooner or later, 
the consequences are inevitable. 

Modern Japan is, swiftly in some respects and 
slowly but surely in others, reorganizing her insti- 
tutions in accordance with the new spirit, so that the 
revolution in that country is a comparatively peace- 
ful and normal one, as it was in England. The 
ruling classes in China and Russia, like those in 
France prior to the Revolution, shut their eyes to 
the facts only to be violently hurled from power. 
The ideas of God, of man, and of duty which 
Christianity inculcates invariably effect profound 
changes in the body politic. They did this in Eu- 



FOREIGN MISSIONS AND RECONSTRUCTION 9 

rope and America, and they are doing it in Asia. 
Christianity alters a man's outlook upon life, gives 
him new conceptions of responsibility, strengthens 
moral fiber, and nerves him to oppose tyranny and 
wrong. What Draper said of Europe may be said 
with equal truth of modern Asia : " The civil law 
exerted an exterior power in human relations; Chris- 
tianity produced an interior and moral change." 
Mr. Winston Churchill of the British Government 
said: " Every penny presented to the cause of mis- 
sions is a contribution to good government; every 
penny spent on missions saves the spending of 
pounds in administration; for missions bring peace, 
law, and order." Similar opinions of British ad- 
ministrators in India have been widely quoted. 

If Asiatic testimony is desired, it may be found 
in abundance. Of the scores of utterances that 
might be cited, two may suffice here: General Li 
Yuan Hung, the Commander-in-Chief of the Re- 
publican Army during the revolution, and after- 
ward successor of Yuan Shih Kai in the presidency: 
" Missionaries are our friends. I am strongly in 
favor of more missionaries coming to China to 
teach Christianity. We shall do all we can to assist 
them, and the more missionaries we get to come to 
China the greater will the Republican Government 
be pleased. China would not be aroused today as 
it is were it not for the missionaries, who have 
penetrated even the most out-of-the-way parts of 
the Empire and opened up the country." Marquis 



io THE WHY AND HOW OF FOREIGN MISSIONS 

Okuma, former Prime Minister of Japan: " The 
coming of missionaries to Japan has been the means 
of putting into these fifty years an advance equiva- 
lent to that of one hundred years. One thousand 
five hundred years ago Japan had advanced in civili- 
zation and domestic arts, but never took wide views 
nor entered upon wide work. Only by the coming 
of the West in its missionary representatives and by 
the spread of the gospel, did the nation enter upon 
world-wide thoughts and world-wide work." 

A spiritual force. Missions are a reconstructive 
spiritual force. We do not mean to separate this 
phase of missionary influence from other phases. 
The spiritual motive pervades all forms of the work 
and furnishes the mainspring of activity; but mis- 
sionaries are preachers and evangelists above all 
else. They believe that man's supreme need is the 
quickening of conscience, the discernment between 
right and wrong, the clarification of moral vision, 
the power that is conveyed in the gospel of Christ. 

The history of their labors is a record of adven- 
turous expeditions, of patient toil, of unflinching 
courage, of uncomplaining self-denial, of endurance 
of persecution, and finally of large achievement. As 
I have visited the missionaries, traveled with them, 
and watched their work during two visits to Asia, 
I have thought more than once that if the eleventh 
chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews were to be 
brought down to date, it would surely include the 
names of many of these men and women of whom, 



FOREIGN MISSIONS AND RECONSTRUCTION n 

like the early Christians, " the world is not worthy." 
An international force. Missions are a recon- 
structive international force. " Foreign missions 
are influences toward better world relationships/' 
says former President William H. Taft. To quote 
again from the remarkable address of the Chinese 
Minister to Washington: " Even more significant 
than the trade relations between our two countries 
has been the work of i^merican missionaries in 
China, than whom no class of foreigners is more 
friendly, sympathetic, and unselfish in their attitude 
toward the Chinese people. The spirit which has 
underlain and still underlies the relations between 
China and the United States is nowhere better illus- 
trated than in the devotion of this comparatively 
small group of Americans to their useful services in 
China and in their readiness to uphold the cause of 
justice and fairness. . . . The American mission- 
aries' record of service properly deserves the grati- 
tude of China and the admiration of the world." 

A supernational religion. Christianity is, there- 
fore, preeminently a supernational religion. We 
do not say international, because that suggests the 
plane of agreements between governments; but 
supernational, in that Christianity transcends na- 
tions. There is, indeed, a proper nationalism, and 
it has many noble elements. Patriotic love for one's 
own country and a zeal to advance its legitimate in- 
terests are great virtues. Missionary societies are 
in warm sympathy with all true nationalism. They 



12 THE WHY AND HOW OF FOREIGN MISSIONS 

thoroughly respect the reasonable desire of any 
people to manage their own affairs unhindered by 
unjust interference from outsiders. But it is some- 
times difficult to draw the line between nationalism 
and internationalism — the due claims of a people 
to control their own interests, and the moral obli- 
gation to take into account the interests of humanity 
at large. It is as true of nations as of individuals 
that " none of us liveth to himself." Nationalism 
properly resents dictation in political matters, but it 
should welcome unselfish efforts to disseminate those 
truths of medicine, sanitation, education, social jus- 
tice, and religion which are universal in character, 
and which no nation can exclude without conse- 
quences that are not only injurious to others but 
fatal to itself. 

The type of nationalism which caused the World 
War is thoroughly pagan. It makes each member 
of the family of nations a law unto itself irrespec- 
tive of the rights of others. It baptizes national 
selfishness and greed as patriotism, and justifies 
cruelty and murder as " military necessity." Said 
Lord Hugh Cecil, of the British Parliament: " Na- 
tionalism, in a degree, is a very desirable thing; but 
it differs from any other form of esprit de corps in 
that it implies or permits a suspension of the moral 
law. We must get people to feel that there is some- 
thing higher than the loyalty to their own country 
— there is an obligation to the interests of all man- 
kind. This doctrine is one of the most elementary 



FOREIGN MISSIONS AND RECONSTRUCTION 13 

tenets of Christianity. We want to get behind the 
idea that the higher loyalty is to our own country, 
to the idea that all men are brethren and that we 
owe to them a duty of inexhaustible, immeasurable 
love." True nationalism is related to superna- 
tionalism as the family is related to the community 
and the community to the State. The local duty is 
imperative, but it is consistent with the duty to the 
larger relationship. President Wilson declared in 
a memorable address: " The principle of public 
right must henceforth take precedence over the in- 
dividual interests of particular nations. . . . Al- 
ways think first of humanity." 

This is precisely what foreign missions are doing. 
They inculcate that highest type of loyalty to coun- 
try, which makes it minister to the supreme good 
of the race. Christianity is the antithesis of a self- 
centered nationalism. It substitutes the law of 
brotherhood for the law of the jungle. 

Is Christian supernationalism practicable? Some 
have alleged that Christianity is impracticable as a 
working principle in social and national affairs. 
This is what Confucianists assert — that the Sermon 
on the Mount is a beautiful theory, but that it can- 
not be put into practice as Confucianism can be. It 
is odd to hear some professed Christians revert to 
this non-Christian argument. Did Christ preach an 
impracticable gospel? Did he tell his followers to 
do something that he knew they could not do? 
What are the impossibles anyway? The world 



14 THE WHY AND HOW OF FOREIGN MISSIONS 

said that it was impossible to break the temporal 
power of the Pope; impossible to extirpate slavery; 
impossible to prohibit the manufacture and sale of 
intoxicating liquors by constitutional amendment; 
impossible for volunteers after a few months' train- 
ing to stand against the trained regulars of Hin- 
denburg; but we have seen all these alleged impos- 
sible things become actual. Nothing that is right 
Is impossible. Whatever ought to be done can be 
clone. Surely we must believe that Christianity is a 
religion that can be put into practical operation in 
human affairs; that the whole gospel applies to the 
whole life; and that nothing that man touches is 
beyond the scope of the law of God. 

Since foreign missions deal with supernational 
ideas, they are in a sense a supernational movement. 
Of course, the individual missionary is a citizen of 
some country, and cannot claim supernationalism for 
himself unless he accepts the necessary implications 
of supernationalism. The country whose rights of 
citizenship he enjoys has rights regarding him and 
must hold him to responsibility for his acts and 
words. But his missionary objectives and work are 
supernational and they distinctly help international 
relations. The true missionary does not stamp his 
own national characteristics upon his work, but con- 
veys supernational ideas of God and man and duty, 
and leaves the people who receive them freedom 
to organize their external forms in accordance with 
their own genius. 



FOREIGN MISSIONS AND RECONSTRUCTION 15 

Representative Asiatics have repeatedly spoken in 
terms of warmest appreciation of the value of mis- 
sionary work from this point of view. The late 
Mr. Fukuzawa, of Japan, said: " In the early days 
of Japanese intercourse with foreigners, there can 
be no doubt that many serious troubles would have 
occurred had not the Christian missionary not only 
showed to the Japanese the altruistic side of the 
Occidental character, but also by his teaching and 
his preaching imparted a new and attractive aspect 
to the intercourse which otherwise would have been 
masterful and repellent. The Japanese cannot thank 
the missionary too much for the admirable leaven 
that they introduced into their relation with for- 
eigners." 

It would be easy to fill pages with quotations to 
the same effect. Foreign missionary work is more 
and more clearly coming to be understood as dis- 
tinctively altruistic in its character and aims. Chris- 
tians in Western lands maintain it with no thought 
whatever of any return to themselves other than 
that of realizing the truth that u it is more blessed 
to give than to receive. " 

Supernationalism and the war spirit. The cor- 
relation of such a supernational enterprise to a jus- 
tifiable national spirit involves many difficulties. 
These difficulties become acute when international 
relations are ruptured. But it is manifestly unjust 
that an altruistic supernational work should be de- 
stroyed by nationalistic wars. When missionary 



16 THE WHY AND HOW OF FOREIGN MISSIONS 

work is broken up, the real sufferer is not the mis- 
sionary, who usually is simply returned to his own 
country, but the natives — the sick and injured turned 
out of hospitals, children dismissed from schools, 
and struggling native churches left without guidance. 
The Japanese Government set a good example 
to all other nations in the Russia-Japan War. It 
was fraught with dire issues to Japan. Defeat 
would have meant subjection to a corrupt and ruth- 
less Russian autocracy. But although the Russian 
Church was a State Church, the Japanese Govern- 
ment permitted the Russian missionaries in Japan 
to continue their work unmolested throughout the 
war, because it realized that their mission was con- 
ducted from motives quite distinct from the objec- 
tives of the war, and was for the direct benefit of 
the Japanese people. Count Katsura, then Prime 
Minister, sent an official communication to the rep- 
resentatives of the Christian Church in the Empire, 
in which he said that, anticipating that the feelings 
aroused by the war might cause differences between 
peoples of different nationalities and religious be- 
liefs, instruction had been issued to local officials re- 
garding the protection of Russian residents and the 
members of the Russian Church. He declared that 
the need for this caution was emphasized by the 
fact that the war was against a professedly Chris- 
tian nation, and he hoped that no one " will be be- 
trayed into the error of supposing that such things 
as differences in race or religion have anything what- 



FOREIGN MISSIONS AND RECONSTRUCTION 17 

ever to do with the present complication. . . ., 
Regarding religion as an essential element of civili- 
zation, I have uniformly tried to treat all religions 
with becoming respect; and I believe it to be an 
important duty of statesmen, under all circum- 
stances, to do their utmost to prevent racial ani- 



mosities." 



Of course, a government has the undoubted right 
to satisfy itself regarding the neutral character of 
a missionary, to watch him closely, and to insist that 
he shall accept the limitations which his superna- 
tional work involves. If he violates them, his 
punishment should be as stern and swift as the 
punishment of anyone who in a time of war misuses 
the privileges accorded him as a non-combatant. 
Some missionaries could not meet this test under the 
strain of the World War. But if the supernational 
principle is recognized, it is comparatively easy to 
test individuals by it and to eliminate those who can- 
not meet the required conditions. 

The new need for world missions. All the mo- 
tives that first prompted to the missionary enter- 
prise exist today in undiminished force. Do not 
men still need the gospel, the sick to be healed, the 
children to be educated, the orphans and the blind 
to be cared for? It would be poor consolation for 
those whom w T e could save now to say that we can 
do nothing more until some future time, when many 
will be dead and many beyond our reach. What- 
ever reason there is for foreign missions at any 



18 THE WHY AND HOW OF FOREIGN MISSIONS 

time applies to all times. Sin has not ceased. The 
lurid glare of it is written across the sky. If men 
have ever needed Christ, they do today. Never 
were the words of inspiration more solemnly true: 
" Now is the acceptable time ; behold, now is the 
day of salvation." 

Indeed, the World War, instead of having lessened 
the need for foreign missions, has created condi- 
tions that have enormously intensified it. Would 
the world be in its present chaotic condition if all 
nations had obeyed the law of God? The Arch- 
bishop of Canterbury truly said: " What is happen- 
ing must be due to the pride, the high-handedness 
of men's temper thwarting the will of God. We 
have got to set ourselves to eradicate and make en- 
durable the temper among men from which such 
things spring." 

What power can do this? Can armament? 
Then let every nation arm to the teeth. But that 
method has been tried and found intolerable. The 
nation that had developed the most efficient fighting 
machine that the world had ever seen was the one 
that was defeated. Can science, philosophy, secular 
education save the world? We saw eminent pro- 
fessors defending the worst atrocities and using 
their scientific skill to devise more deadly weapons 
of destruction. The war taught us anew that while 
knowledge is power, it depends upon the principle 
which regulates the power whether it is for good 
or evil. 



FOREIGN MISSIONS AND RECONSTRUCTION 19 

It is Christ that the world needs; not merely as 
a man, but as the divine and ever-living Son of God. 
It is the gospel that is to be preached; not merely 
as a cult, but what St. Paul declared to be " the 
power of God unto salvation."- It is the Bible that 
we must give to men; not merely as a textbook of 
ethics, but as the revelation of the mind and will 
of God. When the disciples were appalled by " the 
signs of the times " in their day, our Lord did not 
minimize the danger in the least, nor did he tell them 
that on account of it they should seek some quiet 
place until the storm blew over. On the contrary, 
he plainly said: " Ye shall hear of wars and rumors 
of wars. . . . For nation shall rise against nation, 
and kingdom against kingdom. . . . This gospel 
of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole 
world." This is what foreign missions stand for. 

The course of recent history in America illus- 
trates some of the essential foreign missionary teach- 
ings. How did the United States get into the great 
war? Its coasts were three thousand miles away 
from the scene of the conflict, its citizens hated 
war, loved peace, and desired to avoid entangling 
alliances with other nations. But they realized that 
they have become a part of the world; that the period 
of isolation has passed; that they are kin to our 
brethren in other lands; that the maintenance of right 
and the repression of wrong anywhere concern them; 
and that when the weak and innocent are oppressed, 
Americans cannot pass by on the other side. 



20 THE WHY AND HOW OF FOREIGN MISSIONS 

Is not this akin to our missionary message — that 
the world is one; that each nation is a part of it; 
that it is not possible for men to stand aloof from 
one another, however wide may be their geographic 
separation; that the only race is the human race; 
that each part affects and is affected by the others; 
that we in America cannot live apart from Europe 
and Asia; that we are our brother's keeper; and that 
we cannot leave any part of the world out of our 
thought? Everybody now knows these things — ex- 
cept a few reactionaries. The World War chal- 
lenged the fundamental ideas on which the foreign 
missionary enterprise is based and on which alone 
a new world order can be built — the universality of a 
God of justice and love as against a tribal Odin or 
Thor, the brotherhood of man as against race enmity, 
the supremacy of moral obligation, the duty to pro- 
tect the helpless and to punish the lawless. 

Foreign missions are a recognition of these prin- 
ciples in terms of religion. Other activities of our 
churches are in the United States. But we can go 
on preaching to our own people in America till 
doomsday, and if we leave the rest of the world 
godless, it is vain to imagine that we can escape. 
If Asia and Africa and Latin America are to re- 
main as they are, how shall we be saved? We are 
living with them in this new day. We are a part 
of their life and they are a part of ours. If we 
do not raise them up, they will pull us down. It is 
indispensable then that the Church should maintain 



FOREIGN MISSIONS AND RECONSTRUCTION 21 

in full vigor the foreign missionary enterprise which 
is the agency through which this splendid aim is to 
be realized. 

The temper of the times. Will nations ever live 
in peace if the spirit which has heretofore animated 
them, and which still so largely animates them, con- 
tinues to prevail? Does suspicion plus jealousy 
make international good-will? We affirmed that 
our aim was to " make the world safe for democ- 
racy." But what kind of democracy? Will an un- 
principled, godless democracy make the world safe? 
Selfish and cruel men will fight under any kind of 
government. We were determined to overthrow 
autocracy; but the alternative of autocracy is not 
necessarily democracy; it may be mobocracy. Look 
at Russia. Look at Mexico. If people remain igno- 
rant or undisciplined or unscrupulous, how is the 
world bettered? 

Many people appeared to imagine that the mil- 
lennium would come when German autocratic mili- 
tarism was overthrown. They are now learning by 
painful experience the profound truth that " the 
Kingdom of God is within you." Are Asia and 
Africa and Latin America ready to help in creating 
the millennium? We fondly believe that America 
can use democracy aright, although probably few 
of us are free from anxiety on this subject. But 
assuming that America can do so, we must remem- 
ber that in this era of race solidarity it is not only 
a question whether America can do so, but whether 



22 THE WHY AND HOW OF FOREIGN MISSIONS 

Mexico and Colombia and Venezuela can; whether 
China, India, and Turkey can. If democracy is to 
rule the world justly, it must be safe not only here 
but elsewhere. " There is no political alchemy,'' 
said Herbert Spencer, " by which you can get golden 
conduct out of leaden motives." External changes 
alone will not suffice. " If you want to get good 
water," said Dwight L. Moody, " it is not enough 
to paint the pump; you must clean out the well." 
Of what avail for our sons to die on the battle-field 
if the world for whose freedom they fought is a 
Bolshevist world? 

What about the soul of the world? We are 
hearing much these days about armies and navies 
and governments and territorial adjustments. But 
what about the soul of the world — its ideals, its 
aspirations, its moral principles, that which differen- 
tiates the spiritual from the physical, which makes 
men sons of God instead of animals, and substi- 
tutes the law of love for the law of the jungle? 
What shall it profit if we gain the whole world of 
political freedom and carnal might, and lose the 
soul of the world? In foreign missions we are try- 
ing to save the soul of the world. Let us magnify 
our task as one of the indispensable efforts of the 
age. 

We said that we wanted an enduring peace. But 
peace is not an end of itself. It is a by-product — 
a by-product of righteousness and to be attained only 
through righteousness. So teaches the Word of 



FOREIGN MISSIONS AND RECONSTRUCTION 23 

God in Isaiah: " And the work of righteousness 
shall be peace, and the effect of righteousness, quiet- 
ness and confidence forever." We shall never have 
permanent peace until righteousness prevails. It is 
inspiring to think of the prophetic day when " they 
shall beat their swords into plowshares and their 
spears into pruning-hooks ; nation shall not lift up 
sword against nation, neither shall they learn war 
any more." But when did the prophet intimate that 
was to be? When enemies were crushed on the 
battle-field? Not at all; but when all nations " will 
walk in his paths." This is exactly what foreign mis- 
sions are attempting to do — lead all nations to "walk 
in his paths." Surely this is a task not inferior to 
that which we asked our soldiers to achieve on the 
battle-field; a task which alone will make their sacri- 
fice of avail. 

Foreign missions and world peace. No political 
adjustments between governments can create endur- 
ing peace unless they rest upon the moral conditions 
that Christianity develops, and these are precisely 
the conditions that the missionary enterprise creates. 
Treaties are no stronger than the intelligent con- 
science of the peoples that make them. 

The special service that foreign missions can 
render in rightly influencing the pressing world prob- 
lems in eastern Asia was well expressed by Viscount 
James Bryce, when he said that the jarring contact 
of many nations in the Far East today imperatively 
calls for the strengthening of foreign missionary 



24 THE WHY AND HOW OF FOREIGN MISSIONS 

work, which, he declared, " must be the chief influ- 
ence in smoothing that contact, in allaying irrita- 
tion, and in creating these conditions of international 
good-will which are essential to the preservation of 
world peace "; and he added: " The one sure hope 
of a permanent foundation for world peace lies in 
the extension throughout the world of the princi- 
ples of the Christian gospel." 

The future of the world is dark indeed unless there 
is to be the universal recognition and application 
of those ideas of international order, justice, and 
brotherhood which Christ proclaimed, and of which 
the foreign missionary enterprise is the organized 
expression. All other ties snapped in the World 
War. Science, philosophy, education, commerce- — \ 
each and all failed to hold the world together. La- 
bor and socialism came nearer than any of them to 
maintaining a kind of unity; but they too were soon 
rent apart. The home churches were as widely sun- 
dered as other interests. Foreign missions alone 
preserved the international idea. Not that mission- 
aries and their boards were neutral; they were not. 
But they steadily pressed the constructive and unify- 
ing principles on which the new world-order must be 
built. In a shattered world, missions represented 
the truths that must ultimately tie the nations to- 
gether, if they are ever to be brought together at all. 

The hope of the world. The world waits for this 
gospel. Weary and heartsick, from stricken millions 
rises the cry: " We cannot go on like this; life under 



FOREIGN MISSIONS AND RECONSTRUCTION 25 

such conditions is unendurable." And they are say- 
ing to the Church half pleadingly, half resentfully: 
" Have you nothing to offer? Have you no pro- 
gram for a better world? " Shall the Church heed 
the call? " Human crimes are many," said Thomas 
Carlyle, " but the crime of being deaf to God's 
voice, the crime of being blind to everything but 
parchments and antiquarian rubrics when the hand- 
writing of God is abroad in the sky, there is none 
other crime than this which the gods do more ter- 
ribly avenge." 

A regenerated world! A triumphant and safe 
democracy! It seems a far-off, divine evtnt in this 
time of world convulsion when the air is strident 
with angry voices, and the nations are again prepar- 
ing for " the next war." But there are hours when 
one seems to catch a vision of the coming glory of 
" peace on earth among men of good-will," when 
" in the name of Jesus every knee should bow . . . 
and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ 
is Lord." For that day we must write the name of 
Jesus large across the sky of the world. We must 
make the voice of Jesus the deep undertone of 
human life. We must apply the principles of Jesus 
to the solution of all world problems. It is a time 
for clearness of vision; for catholicity of spirit; for 
statesmenship of planning; a time for the splendor 
of a mighty faith in him of whom it is said: " He 
is able"; " able to save to the uttermost"; " able 
to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask 



26 THE WHY AND HOW OF FOREIGN MISSIONS 

or think"; " able even to subject all things unto 
himself." 

And to us is this ministry given — the message of 
a great God who loves all men and would have 
them live together as brethren; a great Saviour who 
died for all; a great gospel which " is the power of 
God unto salvation." Such an embassy is worth 
living for and dying for. 

And to the young men and women of America 
with a new sense of the glory of self-sacrifice that 
the great war has given and with a vision of the 
inspiring task of rebuilding the world on a more 
stable foundation — to you God is speaking as of 
old he spoke to Queen Esther: " For if thou alto- 
gether holdest thy peace at this time, then will relief 
and deliverance arise . . . from another place, 
but thou and thy father's house will perish: and who 
knoweth whether thou art not come to the kingdom 
for such a time as this?" 

References for Further Reading 

The Arabic figures in parentheses attached to the following 
references indicate the serial numbers of the books listed and 
briefly described in the annotated bibliography on pages 94 ff. The 
Roman numbers indicate chapters. 

The Missionary Outlook in the Light of the War (9), Part I. 

The Gospel and the New World, Speer (8), I, XI, XV. 

A Better World, Dennett (1), VI, VII. 

Some Aspects of International Christianity, Kelman (4), IV, V. 

Everybody's World, Eddy (3), I, X. 

The War and Missions in the East, Macdonald (5), XL 

The World and the Gospel, Oldham (6), I. 



II 

THE FOREIGN MISSIONARY MOTIVE 
AND AIM 

Missions in the new day. Recent years have 
seen some change of emphasis in the motives that 
prompt men and women to engage in the foreign 
missionary enterprise. Some motives that stirred 
our fathers are not so strongly operative today, but 
others have emerged that were then but vaguely 
discerned. 

It is now generally recognized that mission work 
must be prosecuted amid changed conditions. The 
peoples of Europe and America have a knowledge 
of Asia and Africa that in the past they did not 
have. Books and magazine articles have dissipated 
the mystery of the Orient. The cable and the radio 
enable the .newspapers to tell us every morning 
what occurred yesterday in Seoul and Peking, in 
Rangoon and Teheran. In the unprecedented min- 
gling of Oriental and Western peoples throughout 
the great war there came opportunity for personal 
acquaintance with the men of Asia and Africa such 
as history never gave before. American treatment 
of the Chinese, the Japanese, and the Negro testify 
to the fact that race prejudice is still strong. Nev- 
ertheless, the white man does not look down upon 

27 



28 THE WHY AND HOW OF FOREIGN MISSIONS 

the men of other races as he did a century ago. He 
recognizes more clearly the good qualities which 
some of the non-Christian peoples possess; he hears 
more of their industrial development; he has sttn 
their military efficiency. This recognition is not un- 
mingled with fear. No one can view with unconcern 
the evidences of awakening national life and ambi- 
tion among the teeming myriads of the Orient. 

The transition from the first century of Protestant 
missions to the second century is attended by no 
more significant change than that illusions have been 
dispelled. People at home are not under illusions 
as to what non-Christians are, and they, in turn, are 
not under illusions as to what we are. The romance 
of missions in the popular mind has been largely 
destroyed. The missionary is no longer a hero to 
the average Christian, but a man with a message 
to his fellow-man. 

There are, too, certain movements of theological 
thought that must be considered. Whatever we 
may think of them, we cannot ignore their preva- 
lence, nor should we argue that they are inconsistent 
with missionary interest. No man should be allowed 
to feel that he is exempt from the missionary obli- 
gation because he is not influenced by our particular 
motive, or because he adopts a different interpreta- 
tion of Bible teaching regarding certain doctrines. 
We may deplore his interpretation, but we cannot 
admit that it releases him from the duty of co- 
operating in this work. Every man who believes 



THE FOREIGN MISSIONARY MOTIVE AND AIM 29 

in a just and loving personal God and receives the 
benefits of Christianity, whether he shares our 
theological convictions or not, should aid in the 
effort to communicate those benefits to races that do 
not have them. 

The central place of Christ. Changes in the po- 
litical and economic life of the world, in the attitude 
of Occidental nations toward the Oriental, and their 
attitude in turn toward us, do not impair the pri- 
mary missionary motive. Rather do they increase 
it. No changes that have taken place or that can 
possibly take place can set aside the great central 
facts that Jesus Christ is the temporal and eternal 
salvation of men, and that it is the duty of those 
who know him to tell others about him. There may 
be questions as to method, but no objection lies 
against the missionary enterprise that does not lie 
with equal force against the fundamental truths of 
the Christian religion. Through all the tumult of the 
world's strife, the one figure that is standing out 
more and more clearly and commandingly before 
men is the figure of the Son of Man. In him is the 
true unity of the race and around him cluster its 
noblest activities. No matter how much Christians 
may differ as to other things, they will be more and 
more agreed as to the imperative duty and the in- 
spiring privilege of preaching Jesus Christ to the 
whole world. 

In the preceding chapter we have noted the vital 
bearings of foreign missions on world reconstruction 



3o THE WHY AND HOW OF FOREIGN MISSIONS 

as a motive for missionary work. We may now 
mention some motives that spring more directly out 
of one's personal relationship to Christ and hu- 
manity. There is room for a fair difference of 
opinion as to their relative importance. In any 
group of individual Christians there will doubtless 
be varying degrees of emphasis upon particular mo- 
tives; but one or more of those that follow will 
probably be found to be determinative. 

I. A real Christian experience. In proportion 
as this is genuine and deep, will we desire to com- 
municate it to others. Propagation is a law of the 
spiritual life. The genius of Christianity is expan- 
sive. Ruskin reminds us of Southey's statement that 
no man was ever yet convinced of any momentous 
truth without feeling in himself the power as well 
as the desire of communicating it. That was the 
prompting of a normal Christian experience which 
led Andrew, after he had met Jesus, to find first his 
own brother, Simon, and say unto him: "We have 
found the Messiah," and to bring him to Jesus. No 
external authority, however commanding, can take 
the place of this internal motive. 

People who assert that they do not believe in 
foreign missions are usually quite unconscious of the 
indictment which they bring against their own 
spiritual experience. The man who has no religion 
of his own that he values of course is not interested 
in the effort to make it known to others. One may 
be simply ignorant of the content of his faith or 



THE FOREIGN MISSIONARY MOTIVE AND AIM 31 

the real character of the missionary movement; but 
as a rule those who know the real meaning of the 
Christian experience are conscious of a strong im- 
pulse to communicate it to others. 

2. The need of the world, " I am debtor," said 
St. Paul. He who has knowledge that is essen- 
tial to his fellow-men is under obligation to convey 
that knowledge to them. It makes no difference 
who those men are, or how much inconvenience or 
expense he may incur in reaching them. The fact that 
he can help them is reason why he should help them. 
This is an essential part of the foreign missionary 
impulse. We have the revelation of God which is 
potential of a civilization that benefits man, an edu- 
cation that fits him for higher usefulness, a scientific 
knowledge that enlarges his powers, a medical skill 
that alleviates his sufferings, and above all a rela- 
tion to Jesus Christ that not only lends new dignity 
to this earthly life but that saves his soul and pre- 
pares him for eternal companionship with God. 
" In none other is there salvation." Therefore, we 
must convey this gospel to the world. There is no 
worthy reason for being concerned about the salva- 
tion of the man next to us which is not equally 
applicable to the man five thousand miles away. 

It is hard to realize this concerning those who are 
so distant? Precisely; foreign missionary interest 
presupposes breadth of soul. Anyone can love his 
own family, but it takes a high-souled man to love 
all men. He who has that which the world needs 



32 THE WHY AND HOW OF FOREIGN MISSIONS 

should communicate it to the world. The true 
disciple would feel this even if Christ had spoken 
no command. The missionary impulse would have 
stirred him to spontaneous action. Christ simply- 
voiced the holiest dictates of the human heart when 
he summoned his followers to missionary activity. 
The question whether non-Christian peoples really 
need Christ may be answered by the counter-ques- 
tion: Do we need him? The intensity of our desire 
to tell them of Christ will be in proportion to the 
intensity of our own sense of need. 

We do not hear as much as our fathers heard of 
the motive of " salvation of the heathen." Our age 
prefers to dwell upon the blessings of faith rather 
than upon the consequences of unbelief. And yet 
if we believe that Christ is our " life," it is impos- 
sible to avoid the corollary that to be without Christ 
is death. Reason as well as revelation tells us that 
man has sinned, that " the wages of sin is death," 
and that this truth is as applicable to Asia and 
Africa as to Europe and America. We freely grant 
that it is possible that some who have never heard 
of Christ may be saved. The spirit of God is not 
shut up to the methods that we know about. We 
dare not dogmatize regarding every individual 
among the many millions who, without opportunity 
to accept the historic Christ, may live up to the light 
they have. 

Taking non-Christian peoples as we know them, 
however, it is sorrowfully, irrefutably true that they 



THE FOREIGN MISSIONARY MOTIVE AND AIM 33 

are living in known sin, and that by no possible 
stretch of charity can they be considered beyond the 
necessity for the revealed gospel. Jesus came " to 
save," and salvation is from something. A char- 
itable hope that some are living like the pious He- 
brews before the incarnation does not lessen our 
duty to give them the clearer knowledge, which, like 
Simeon of old, they would eagerly welcome, nor 
does it modify in the least our obligation toward 
the masses who are living on a lower level. The 
Light shines for all, and those who see it must 
spread the tidings. 

3. The command of Christ. The circumstances 
were inexpressibly solemn. He had risen from the 
tomb and was about to ascend to the Father. But 
ere he left his disciples, he said unto them: " All 
authority hath been given unto me in heaven and 
on earth. Go ye, therefore, and make disciples of 
all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the 
Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit: teach- 
ing them to observe all things whatsoever I com- 
manded you: and lo, I am with you always, even 
unto the end of the world." A little later he re- 
iterated the charge: " Ye shall be my witnesses both 
in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and 
unto the uttermost part of the earth. " " And he 
lifted up his hands and blessed them." " And a 
cloud received him out of their sight." 

There is no gainsaying that command. Whether 
we consider the person who gave it, the circum- 



34 THE WHY AND HOW OF FOREIGN MISSIONS 

stances in which it was given, or the duty imposed, 
we must regard it as the weightiest of utterances. 
If it were the only motive, foreign missionary work 
would be a mechanical performance of duty, the 
missionary merely an obedient soldier; but taken in 
connection with the preceding motives, it adds the 
impressive sanctions of divine authority. It is the 
bugle call which, to the true soldier, never loses its 
thrilling, response-compelling power. It is not a 
request, not a suggestion, it leaves nothing to our 
choice. It is an order, comprehensive and un- 
equivocal, a clear, peremptory, categorical impera- 
tive— " Go!" 

No one can read the New Testament without see- 
ing that the evangelization of the world was the 
supreme thought of Christ. He sought, not merely 
the rich and influential, but men as men, irrespective 
of their wealth or position. When the blind beggar 
cried out to him for help, he said to him: " Go thy 
way; thy faith hath made thee whole." When he 
saw the famishing multitudes, he " had compassion 
on them, because they were as sheep not having a 
shepherd." He could not bear to see men perish, 
and the thought of it caused him keenest agony. He 
was himself a missionary, and his entire ministry 
was a missionary ministry. While his earthly life 
was confined to Palestine, he made it clear that the 
scope of his purpose was world-wide. He plainly 
said: " And other sheep I have, which are not of 
this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall 




Colporteur in northern Africa 

An Arab preacher, who also has charge of this Bible deposi- 
tory in Tunis. The preparation and distribution of Bibles and 
Christian literature, as conducted by missions and Bible societies, 
is itself a vast enterprise. 



THE FOREIGN MISSIONARY MOTIVE AND AIM 35 

hear my voice." He declared that " God so loved 
the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that 
whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but 
have eternal life." He taught the sublime truth of 
the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. 
He broke down the partition wall between nations. 
In an age when men regarded men of other races 
as foes, he said: " Love your enemies." He showed 
the race-proud Jews that the Samaritan was their 
" neighbor." Going " into the borders of Tyre and 
Sidon," he saved a poor Syrophoenician woman. 
With a vision of world conquest, he exclaimed: " I 
say unto you, that many shall come from the east 
and the west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and 
Isaac, and Jacob, in the Kingdom of Heaven." 
" And I, if I be lifted from the earth, will draw all 
men unto myself." 

Since the saving of men is Christ's supreme 
thought, it should be ours. How is it possible for 
one who professes to follow Christ not to believe in 
missions, when missions are simply the organized 
effort to carry out the will of the Master? Men 
talk about heresy as if it related only to the creed. 
Jesus said, " I and the Father are one," but he also 
said, " Go ye into all the world, and preach the 
gospel." Is it not as heretical to deny one state- 
ment as the other? Failure to do the will of Christ 
emasculates the essential idea of the Church. There 
may be a noble edifice, a large congregation, bril- 
liant oratory, inspiring music; but if the Master's 



36 THE WHY AND HOW OF FOREIGN MISSIONS 

call to altruistic service is not heard and heeded, it 
cannot be a Church of the living God. 

Those who are solicitous about the salvation of 
men who die without having heard of Christ may 
well add some concern about the salvation of pro- 
fessed Christians who, with the Bible in their hands, 
the command of Christ in their ears, and the condi- 
tion of the lost world before their eyes, manifest but 
languid interest in the effort to save the world. It 
is difficult to understand how those who profess to 
serve Christ can be indifferent to the most impor- 
tant work which Christ has committed to his fol- 
lowers, or how they can expect his blessing while 
they neglect his specific injunction. " If a man love 
me, he will keep my word," said Christ, and the 
word is, w Go, preach." When a young clergyman 
asked the Duke of Wellington whether he did not 
deem it useless to attempt to convert India, the great 
general sternly replied, " What are your marching 
orders, sir? " 

It is interesting to note that the word " apostle " 
is derived from a Greek word which means one sent 
forth, a messenger, and that the word " mission- 
ary " is the Latin equivalent of the Greek u apostle." 
Therefore the modern apostle is the missionary, and 
while men at home are disputing over apostolic suc- 
cession, the foreign missionaries, who are the real 
apostles, are doing what their lineal predecessors 
did — " going away " from home to preach the gos- 
pel to all the nations of the earth. 



THE FOREIGN MISSIONARY MOTIVE AND AIM 37 

We may well be awed by the majesty of Christ's 
declaration; a lonely Nazarene, with a handful of 
humble followers, calmly bidding them not to con- 
fine their efforts to their own country but to proclaim 
his teaching to " the whole creation." No excep- 
tions are to be made. Christ did not say, " Teach 
all nations, save those that you deem beneath you," 
nor did he say, " Preach to every creature, except 
the Hindu and Buddhist and Mohammedan, who 
have religions of their own." He made the scope 
of his command absolutely universal. 

It is the purpose of God, said Paul, M to reconcile 
all things unto himself." We should never lose 
sight of the grandeur of this conception. Chris- 
tianity is not' a life-boat sent out to a sinking ship 
to rescue a few passengers and let the rest go to 
the bottom. It will save all the passengers, un- 
less they refuse to be saved, and it will save the 
ship. The Bible looks to a redeemed earth. Let 
us hope and pray and work for nothing short of 
that stupendous consummation. Limiting the grace 
of God, doubting its adequacy for all men, acting 
as if it were for America and not for Africa and the 
islands of the sea, are sins against the Holy Ghost. 

While the motives that have been cited are in 
themselves adequate, there are others that should 
also be noted. 

The civilizing influence of the gospel. In many 
ways the missionary is " the advance agent of civili- 



38 THE WHY AND HOW OF FOREIGN MISSIONS 

zation," using that term in its highest sense. As 
the product of centuries of Christian training, with 
all its customs and ideals, he appears in a rude vil- 
lage in Africa. He opposes slavery, polygamy, can- 
nibalism, and infanticide. He teaches the boys to 
be honest, sober, and thrifty; the girls to be pure, 
intelligent, and industrious. He induces the natives 
to cover their nakedness, to build houses, and to till 
the soil. He inculcates and exemplifies the social 
and civic virtues. His own home and his treatment 
of his wife and daughters are object-lessons in a 
community which has always treated woman as a 
slave. The inertia of long-established heathenism 
is hard to overcome, but it slowly yields to the new 
power, and the beginning of civilized society gradu- 
ally appears. Volumes might be filled with the tes- 
timonies of statesmen, travelers, and military and 
naval officers to the value of missionary work from 
this point of view, and the cumulative power of this 
class of evidence is doubtless a large factor in the 
public mind. 

Philanthropic interest. The philanthropic mo- 
tive is stirred by the consciousness of human brother- 
hood and the natural desire to relieve the appalling 
suffering and ignorance that prevail throughout 
most of the non-Christian world. Christ is the 
Great Physician now as of old. As one sees the 
prevalence of disease and misery, the untended 
ulcers, the sightless eyes to which the surgeon's skill 
could bring light, the pain-racked limbs, pierced with 



THE FOREIGN MISSIONARY MOTIVE AND AIM 39 

red-hot needles to kill the alleged demon, that are 
made ten times worse by the superstitious and 
bungling methods of treatment, sympathies are 
profoundly moved, and one is prompted to give 
and to labor that such agony may be alleviated. 
Medical missions with their hospitals and dispen- 
saries strongly appeal to this motive, as do also 
orphanages and industrial missions with their teach- 
ing of the principles of better living. The preach- 
ing of the gospel itself is sometimes supported by 
this motive, for it is plain that the sufferings of men 
are diminished and the dignity and the worth of life 
increased by the application of the principles of 
Christianity to human society. 

The desire for results. The argument from re- 
sults is the most decisive with many people of the 
utilitarian type. They want to see that their money 
accomplishes something, to know that their invest- 
ment is yielding tangible return. They eagerly scan 
missionary reports to ascertain how many converts 
have been made, how many pupils are being taught, 
how many patients are being treated. Telling them 
of successes achieved is the surest method of in- 
ducing them to increase their gifts. Mission boards 
often find it difficult to sustain interest in apparently 
unproductive fields, but comparatively easy to arouse 
enthusiasm for fields in which converts are quickly 
made. The churches are eager and even impatient 
for results. There are limits to this argument, as 
we shall presently note; but within reasonable 



40 THE WHY AND HOW OF FOREIGN MISSIONS 

bounds it has undoubted value. In many lands re- 
sults have been achieved on such a scale as to satisfy 
the demand; but in other lands not less important, 
weary years have had to be spent in preparing the 
soil and sowing the seed, and hard-working mission- 
aries have been half disheartened by the popular 
insistence for accounts of baptisms before the har- 
vest-time has fairly come. 

A change of emphasis. The basis of the mis- 
sionary appeal has noticeably changed within recent 
years. Our commercial, humanitarian, and prac- 
tical age is more impressed by the utilitarian and the 
temporal than by the spiritual and ideal. 

The idea of saving men for the present world 
appeals more strongly than the idea of saving them 
for the next world, and missionary sermons and 
addresses give large emphasis to these considera- 
tions. We need not and should not under-value 
them. They are real. It is legitimate and Chris- 
tian to seek the temporal welfare of our fellow-men, 
to alleviate their distresses, to exalt woman, and to 
purify society. It is, moreover, true and to the 
credit of the missionary enterprise that it widens the 
area of the world's useful knowledge and introduces 
the conveniences and necessities of Christian civili- 
zation. It is certainly reasonable that those who 
work or give should desire to see results, and they 
are naturally incited to renewed diligence by an in- 
spiring record of achievements. 

But with the wider diffusion of knowledge, the 



THE FOREIGN MISSIONARY MOTIVE AND AIM 41 

civilizing influence of missions is becoming relatively 
less important. Japan, India, and the Philippines 
have schools that give excellent secular training; and 
philanthropic institutions under secular auspices, 
though usually due to Christian initiative, are begin- 
ning to come into existence. Some non-Christian 
lands have civilizations of their own more ancient 
than ours, and, so far as moral questions are not 
involved, quite as well adapted to their needs. Our 
Western civilization, moreover, is not by any means 
wholly Christian. Whether men are civilized or 
not, we must continue our missionary work of evan- 
gelizing the world. 

The achievements of more than a hundred years 
of missionary effort are encouraging; but if they 
were not, our duty would still stand. We should 
work and pray for what is right, though we may 
not live to see the right triumph. Some of the best 
causes do not yield immediate results. Christ's life 
was a failure, from the point of view of his own 
generation; so were the labors of Paul and Peter 
and Stephen; but later generations saw the rich 
fruitage. Like them the true missionary toils from 
motives that are independent of present appear- 
ances. He knows that he is working with God, for 
God, and in obedience to God, and, with Faber, he 
is confident that in the end, 

" He always wins who sides with God; 
With Him no chance is lost." 



42 THE WHY AND HOW OF FOREIGN MISSIONS 

The aim. A clear idea of the aim of the mission- 
ary enterprise is important. Everyone understands 
in a general way that it is proposed to " convert the 
heathen," but beyond that, many who support the 
work and even some who apply for appointment ap- 
pear to have only vague ideas. The missionary 
movement has certain definite aims, and they must 
be kept clearly in mind if the work is to be intelli- 
gently and efficiently done. 

A personal Saviour. First of all, the aim is to 
present Christ so intelligently to men that they will 
accept him as their personal Saviour. 

Emphasis should be laid upon the word " intelli- 
gently." This idea excludes the hurried and super- 
ficial presentation of the gospel. It is not enough 
to go into a non-Christian community, proclaim 
Christ for a few days or months, and then pass on 
in the belief that we have discharged our responsi- 
bility. Even Americans and Europeans with all 
their general knowledge do not grasp new ideas so 
quickly as that, and we cannot reasonably expect 
other races to do so. To a large part of the non- 
Christian world, Christ is still unknown even by 
name, and a great majority of those who have heard 
of him know him only in such a general way as most 
people in this country have heard of Mencius or 
Zoroaster. Of his real character and relation to 
men, they know nothing. What little they have 
heard of him as a historical personage is beclouded 
and distorted by the inherited and hostile pre- 



THE FOREIGN MISSIONARY MOTIVE AND AIM 43 

sumptions of age-old prejudices, superstitions, and 
spiritual deadness. In such circumstances, to make 
Christ intelligently known is likely to be a long and 
perhaps a wearisome effort. Carey in India and 
Morrison in China toiled seven years before their 
hearts were gladdened by a single convert. Tyler 
in South Africa saw fifteen laborious years pass be- 
fore the first Zulu accepted Christ, while Gilmour 
preached for twenty years in Mongolia before 
visible results appeared. After the Asiatic mind 
once fairly grasps the new truth, progress usually 
becomes more rapid, but at first and sometimes for 
long periods, it is liable to be painfully slow. The 
missionary and the church that supports him often 
have need of patience. 

The complete presentation of the gospel often in- 
cludes a wide variety of activities. The missionary 
is following the example of Christ in alleviating the 
bodily sufferings of men. It is absolutely necessary 
to translate and publish the Bible, to create a Chris- 
tian literature, to teach the young, and to train them 
for leadership. Man must be influenced at every 
stage of his career and shown that the gospel is 
adapted to his present state as well as to his future 
life. Christianity must work out from the individual 
to the family, community, and state. The aim in 
all this is something more than philanthropic or 
educational or literary. It is a new birth, an internal 
transformation, that men most vitally need. 

An indigenous church. This personal presenta- 



44 THE WHY AND HOW OF FOREIGN MISSIONS 

tion of Christ with a view to men's acceptance of 
him as Saviour and Lord is to issue as soon as pos- 
sible in the organization of converts into churches. 
Herein foreign missionary work differs from the 
work of the churches at home. Our task is to give 
the gospel to every man, woman, and child in our 
own country. As new generations are continually 
coming on, as converts are to be trained for Chris- 
tian life and service, and as many applications of 
Christianity to society are involved, the work of the 
Church at home will never be completed. In the 
foreign field, it is our task to found the Church, 
and then to induce it to assume those duties for the 
further evangelization of the population that we 
have assumed for our own people. Christians in 
North America must support all their own ministers, 
build every church edifice, erect and equip every 
school and hospital, conduct every form of allied 
service for the poor, dependent, and defective 
classes, and carry through every social reform. It 
would be impossible for us to do this for the billion 
people of the non-Christian world, and the foreign 
missionary enterprise does not contemplate such an 
undertaking. We are to start the Church, show it 
how to do its work, and turn over responsibility to 
it as fast as it is able to receive it. 

This ultimate aim should be kept steadily in view 
and should influence all missionary methods. If the 
Church is not established, the toil of the missionary 
will result only in detached individuals who will not 



THE FOREIGN MISSIONARY MOTIVE AND AIM 45 

attain maturity of faith or character, and who will 
neither perpetuate themselves nor exert decisive 
influence upon the world. Christianity will not con- 
trol a nation's life as long as it is an exotic. It must 
become an indigenous growth. To this end, effort 
must be put forth to develop the independent ener- 
gies of the convert. He is usually a spiritual child, 
£nd, like a physical child, he must be for a time 
11 under tutors and governors"; but the instruction 
looks to the development of self-reliant character. 

References for Further Reading 

The Missionary Motive 

A Study of Christian Missions, Clarke (13), I, II. 
Winning the World for Christ, Lambuth (25), V, VI. 
The World and the Gospel, Oldham (6), II, III. 
The Modern Missionary Challenge, Jones (15), I. 

The Aims of Foreign Missions 

A Study of Christian Missions, Clarke (13), III. 
The Gospel and the New World, Speer (8), VII. 
The Spread of Christianity in the Modern World, Moore (16), VI. 
The Universal Elements of the Christian Religion, Hall (23), 
Lecture I. 



Ill 

FOREIGN MISSIONARY 
ADMINISTRATION 

The need for a central agency. World evan- 
gelization being the supreme work of the Church, 
the method of administration should be commen- 
surate in scope and dignity with the task to be per- 
formed. Such a task cannot properly be done by 
individuals, or by congregations acting separately. 
It is too vast, the distance too great, the single act 
too small. Local churches do not have the experi- 
ence in dealing with missionary problems, or the 
comprehensive knowledge of details necessary for 
the conduct of such an enterprise. Moreover, the 
individual may die or lose his money. The single 
church may become indifferent or discouraged. Even 
if neither of these alternatives should happen, the 
work would lack stability. It would be fitful, 
sporadic, too largely dependent upon accidental 
knowledge or temporary emotion. A chance news- 
paper article or a visit of some enthusiastic mis- 
sionary might direct disproportionate gifts to one 
field, while others equally or perhaps more impor- 
tant would be neglected. The wise expenditure of 
large sums of money in far distant lands, the checks 
and safeguards essential to prudent control, the 

4 6 



FOREIGN MISSIONARY ADMINISTRATION 47 

equitable distribution of workers and forms of 
work, the proper balancing of interests between 
widely-scattered and isolated points, the formulation 
of principles of mission policy — all these require a 
central administrative agency. 

The foreign mission task is varied and complex, 
including not only churches and inquirer's classes, 
but day-schools, boarding-schools, industrial schools, 
normal schools, colleges (academic, medical, and 
theological), hospitals and dispensaries, orphanages, 
leper and insane asylums, institutions for the blind 
and the deaf and dumb; the translation, publishing, 
and selling of books and tracts; the purchase and 
care of property; the health and homes and fur- 
loughs of missionaries; fluctuating currencies of 
many kinds; and negotiations with governments. 
All this involves a mass of details little understood 
by the home church. Problems and interrelations 
with other work are involved which are entirely be- 
yond the experience of the home minister and which 
call for an expert knowledge only possible to one 
who devotes his entire time to their acquisition. 

An observant layman, who made a special inves- 
tigation of missionary work, wrote from Japan: 
14 My own observation leads me to conclude that in- 
dependent missions make more stir in the homeland 
than they do here. They are usually temporary, 
since they depend upon one man. . . . The only 
effectual missionary work that can be pursued is that 
conducted on a broad basis and long-continued plan." 



48 THE WHY AND HOW OF FOREIGN MISSIONS 

The churches and their boards. Recognizing the 
necessity for some responsible agency, whose out- 
look is over the whole field and through which in- 
dividuals and churches may work collectively and to 
the best advantage, some lens which shall gather 
up all the scattered rays of local effort and focus 
them where they are needed, each of the leading 
communions has constituted a board * of foreign 
missions as the great channel through which it shall 
unitedly, wisely, and systematically carry on this 
work for humanity and God. 

Auxiliary denominational agencies cooperate with 
this board and send their money to it for adminis- 
tration. There is no exception to this in most 
churches; but in some, the women's societies are 
separately organized and administer their own 
funds. Every secretary could speak warmly appre- 
ciative words of these societies. There are no more 
efficient organizations anywhere than the women's 
boards of foreign missions. They form not only an 
indispensable but a very prominent part of the mod- 
ern missionary movement, and they are sharing to 
an increasing degree in the counsels of the church 
boards. 

The organic relation of a board to the church 
that it represents is naturally affected by the ecclesi- 
astical system that is involved. The Methodist 

1 For the sake of unity the word board is used in place of com- 
mittee, conference, society, or union to designate the denominational 
missionary organization. 



FOREIGN MISSIONARY ADMINISTRATION 49 

Episcopal, Protestant Episcopal, Presbyterian, and 
other bodies that have an authoritative denomina- 
tional organization have created boards that are 
directly amenable to the supreme judicatories of the 
Church. Churches like the Baptist, Congregational, 
and Disciples of Christ, that do not have such de- 
nominational organization, or, like the Church of 
England, that have more than one foreign mission- 
ary agency, act through societies which, though 
having no formal relation to an ecclesiastical body, 
are nevertheless distinctively church agencies with 
the same scope and authority as other boards. The 
societies of these Churches are not, therefore, " in- 
dependent," in the sense in which we have used 
that term. 

Selection and composition of boards. The 
method of selection varies. In Churches that have 
a governing judicatory, the members of the board 
are chosen by it. 

In the Methodist Episcopal Church, |he General 
Conference appoints a Board of Managers consist- 
ing of thirty-two ministers and thirty-two laymen, 
with the bishops as ex-officio members. 

In the Protestant Episcopal Church, the General 
Convention elects a National Council to determine 
policies and supervise the work of the various gen- 
eral agencies. Ten members of this Council, in- 
cluding bishops, other clergymen, and laymen, con- 
stitute the Department of Missions. They may add 
to their numbers not more than twelve other per- 



SO THE WHY AND HOW OF FOREIGN MISSIONS 

sons, some of whom may be women, who have seats 
and votes in the Department, but neither seats nor 
votes in the Council. 

The General Assemblies of the Presbyterian 
churches appoint the members of their missionary 
agencies. 

The American Board of Commissioners for For- 
eign Missions of the Congregational churches con- 
sists of 750 corporate members, 600 of whom are 
chosen by the churches, primarily as members of 
the National Council, and by virtue of such election 
becoming corporate members of the American 
Board. In addition to these, 150 members at large 
are chosen by the body itself. To avoid confusion 
it should be borne in mind that the term " board," 
as used by the Congregational churches, does not 
refer to the executive body that is styled " board " 
in this book, the functions of the latter being dis- 
charged by a Prudential Committee of twelve elected 
by the Board. 

The foreign mission enterprise of Baptist churches 
in the Northern States is conducted by the American 
Baptist Foreign Mission Society, an organization 
composed of members appointed by Baptist churches 
and all accredited delegates to each annual meeting 
of the Northern Baptist Convention. The manage- 
ment of the work of the Society is committed to a 
Board of Managers consisting of the President of 
the Society and twenty-seven persons elected by 
ballot at an annual meeting. The Board elects the 



FOREIGN MISSIONARY ADMINISTRATION 51 

secretaries, appoints the missionaries, directs their 
work, arranges for the control or disposition of the 
property of the Society and makes all appropria- 
tions of funds. 

With the Southern Baptists, the board is a stand- 
ing committee of the Southern Baptist Convention, 
with administrative powers between the sessions of 
the Convention. 

The Board of Foreign Missions of the United 
Lutheran Church in America is composed of twenty- 
one members under the charter, and there are two 
advisory members from the Executive Board of the 
Women's Missionary Society, three cooperating 
members from the Swedish Augustana Synod, and 
two from the Danish Church, the latter carrying 
on Lutheran mission work in Japan under a United 
Lutheran Conference composed of the missionaries 
of the United Lutheran Church in America and the 
Danish Church. 

Board members and their tasks. The majority 
of the members of a board usually live in or near 
the city in which the board is located, because ex- 
perience has proved that a few men, each of whom 
can be easily reached, all of whom have a vital 
interest in the trusts confided to them, will perform 
any given labor more efficiently than a large board 
whose members are so diffused as to be seldom col- 
lected, or as to forget the claims of a duty whose 
immediate field is far away. 

But though the members of a board are usually 



52 THE WHY AND HOW OF FOREIGN MISSIONS 

chosen from one part of the country, they are not 
sectional in spirit. There are no wiser ministers in 
the country than those who are on our boards of 
foreign missions. There are no more sagacious 
business men than their lay members. Those who 
sneer at mission boards forget that they are com- 
posed not only of distinguished clergymen, but of 
bank presidents, successful merchants, railroad di- 
rectors, great lawyers, managers of large enter- 
prises, men who in the commercial world are of 
recognized standing and are implicitly trusted. Is 
their judgment of less value when they deal with 
the extension of the Kingdom of God? 

The administrative side of the missionary enter- 
prise is commanding, too, the service of a host of 
able and cultured women. The women's boards, in- 
dependently and in increasingly close cooperation 
with the general boards, are conducting work of 
great magnitude in every part of the world. The 
women who bear the responsibility for it are out- 
standing figures in the religious, educational, and 
social life of the nation. 

These men and women devote time and labor to 
the boards, leaving their own work, often at great 
inconvenience, to attend board and committee meet- 
ings, and earnestly and prayerfully consider the 
things that pertain to this sacred cause. Yet they 
receive no compensation whatever, freely giving the 
Church the benefit of their ripe experience and busi- 
ness capacity. It would be necessary to pay a large 



FOREIGN MISSIONARY ADMINISTRATION 53 

sum to command their services for any other cause, 
if indeed they could be commanded at all. The 
churches owe much to their boards. 

Executive officers and their duties. The execu- 
tive officer of a board is the secretary, the larger 
boards having several secretaries. These officers 
are usually elected by the board, subject to confirma- 
tion by the supreme judicatory of the Church. In 
some communions, however, as, for example, the 
Methodist Episcopal Church, the judicatory itself 
elects them. A well-informed editor says that u so 
far from a ministerial life unfitting a man for prac- 
tical affairs, the Church has command of the best 
brains in the country for the least money and makes 
fewer business mistakes than the great corporations 
of which we hear so much." Dr. Henry H. Jessup 
of Syria testified, out of his personal experience as 
a substitute during the illness of a secretary, that 
u among the hardest working men in the missionary 
ranks are the secretaries and treasurer of the 
board." 

" The offices of one of our great societies," writes 
an observer, M are as busy a hive of workers as any 
financial or mercantile institution. Receipts of sums 
varying from a few cents to thousands of dollars, 
and in many cases aggregating over a million, are 
recorded, acknowledged, cared for; accounts are 
kept with every variety of manufacturer and mer- 
chant; payments are made through the great bank- 
ing houses of Europe and Asia to thousands of 



54 THE WHY AND HOW OF FOREIGN MISSIONS 

agents in every country; correspondence affecting 
not merely the spiritual but temporal welfare of mil- 
lions upon millions of people is carefully considered 
and filed away for reference at any moment; books 
are published in widely different languages; large 
investments in real estate and in buildings are made; 
diplomatic questions, sometimes of immense impor- 
tance, are considered. In fact, there is probably no 
other organization in the world, except a national 
government, that carries on so varied and important 
lines of business as a foreign missionary society." 

The board is divided into committees represent- 
ing the various mission fields, and a finance com- 
mittee to advise with the treasurer. The larger 
boards are divided into departments with an execu- 
tive secretary at the head of each one. The foreign 
secretary tries to keep in touch with the individual 
missionary and to form the channel through which 
the interest and cheer and love of the home churches 
flow out to the lonely workers far away. Questions 
affecting expenditures and policy, however, and all 
official requests to the board the secretary takes into 
the cabinet or executive council composed of all the 
officers of the board. There each question is dis- 
cussed and a judgment reached, which, at the next 
meeting of the board, is presented to that body by 
the secretary in charge, and the action is not com- 
plete until it has been ratified by the board. Mat- 
ters of special importance are considered by a com- 
mittee of the board in conjunction with the council. 



FOREIGN MISSIONARY ADMINISTRATION 55 

It will thus be seen that there is little opportunity 
for one-man power in the workings of a board, 
inasmuch as each secretary must submit his conclu- 
sions for the approval, first, of his colleagues and 
then of the board itself, and in special cases of a 
committee besides. 

Finance administering, a sacred trust. In the 
handling of money great care is taken. Not only 
is every sum received promptly acknowledged to the 
giver, but public reports are made by the board. 
An annual contract is made by many of the boards 
with firms of certified public accountants, whose rep- 
resentatives walk into the offices at any time, take 
possession of all books and vouchers, and audit all 
accounts, making their report, not to the treasurer, 
but directly to the finance committee of business 
men. Every precaution is taken to secure reliability 
and accuracy, and so great is the care exercised and 
so complete is the system, that it is not believed that 
a serious mistake could escape prompt detection. 

A Buffalo banker and a Pittsburg manufacturer 
made an exhaustive examination of the financial 
methods of one of the great boards, and they bore 
11 testimony to the complete and business-like meth- 
ods that are followed in the office management, 
which, we believe, are fully up to the best practise 
in the leading financial and industrial institutions of 
the country, and give assurance that the business 
entrusted to this office is promptly, efficiently, and 
economically conducted." 



56 THE WHY AND HOW OF FOREIGN MISSIONS 

Each mission is required to make itemized esti- 
mates of its needs for the year. These estimates 
are carefully scrutinized by the executive officers of 
the board. Then the probable income is carefully 
computed on the basis of average receipts for a 
series of years, and any " signs of the time " that 
may indicate an increase or a decrease. Such grant 
is then made as the limits of expected income may 
permit. In many communions the budget of the 
mission board is deemed a part of the total budget 
of the Church as a whole for all its agencies, and 
the amount assigned to foreign missions is fixed by 
a committee representing the Church. 

The expense of administration. Practical men 
and women are interested in the cost of administra- 
tion. Of course a board must have offices and 
facilities for doing its work. The scale of admin- 
istration is largely determined by the ideas of the 
Church which the board represents and the work 
that it is required to do. It is hardly fair to cite 
the low administrative expense of certain inde- 
pendent agencies, for they do not assume such re- 
sponsibilities for the maintenance of their mission- 
aries as Church boards do. Churches want their 
missionaries adequately supported for a life-work, 
and that involves an administrative agency com- 
mensurate in expensiveness with the obligations that 
must be assumed. Still, the cost of administration 
of the denominational boards is surprisingly low. 
The exact percentage varies; some have free rentals 



; 



FOREIGN MISSIONARY ADMINISTRATION 57 

and unpaid agents, and the cost of stimulating the 
churches is not always considered administrative. 
In general, it may be said that, including promotive 
work among the home churches and the expensive 
annual reports required by the Church, the average 
percentage of administration of a typical board is 
under seven per cent. That is, it takes but little 
more than the value of a foreign postage stamp to 
send a dollar to Asia, Africa, or Latin America. 

A secretary of a board was asked: " Did my dol- 
lar for foreign missions get there ?" He replied 
that 93% cents out of every dollar did, and that 
receipts from schools, hospitals, and congregations 
on the foreign field were 30% cents for every dollar 
that American Christians gave, so that for every 
dollar given to foreign missions, $1.24 was actually 
used on the foreign field. The dollar more than 
" got there. " 

Is there any mercantile concern doing a great 
business requiring the services of a large number 
of persons scattered all over the world whose per- 
centage of expenditure for administration is so low? 
Dr. Henry van Dyke once made inquiries of sev- 
eral large corporations, railway, manufacturing, and 
mercantile, and he found that the average cost of 
administration was 12.75 per cent, while in one 
great establishment it rose to 20 per cent. The 
manager of one of the large department stores in 
New York told me that his expense for administra- 
tion was 22 per cent, and he expressed aston- 



58 THE WHY AND HOW OF FOREIGN MISSIONS 

ishment that the mission board's cost was only 
one third of that. The cases are not entirely 
parallel; but after making all reasonable allowance 
for difference, the essential fact remains that the 
cost of missionary administration is remarkably 
economical. Indeed some good judges believe that 
it is so low as to lessen efficiency and income, and 
that a larger executive staff and a more generous 
expenditure for advertising and developing interest 
in the home churches would secure a more satisfac- 
tory administration of the work abroad and a more 
adequate financial support at home. 

The question of debt. It is more difficult than 
many might imagine to manage a great board so as 
to avoid debt. The work, being conducted on a 
large scale and over a vast territory, cannot be hur- 
riedly adjusted to financial changes in the United 
States. It has been gradually developed throughout 
a long series of years, and must have a degree of 
stability. A board cannot end its work with the 
year and begin the next year on a different basis. 
It operates in distant lands, some so remote that 
from four to six months are required for the mere 
interchange of letters. Plans and pledges must be 
made far in advance. It is not easy to forecast the 
future, but the boards must try to do so. 

Moreover, missionaries are sent out for a life 
service. They cannot be discharged at any time, 
as a merchant discharges a clerk. The board re- 
serves the right of recall; but it justly feels that it 



FOREIGN MISSIONARY ADMINISTRATION 59 

should not exercise it, save for serious cause in the 
missionary himself. Foreign missionaries, too, are 
not situated like home missionaries — among people 
of their own race, with partially self-supporting con- 
gregations behind them, and with larger churches 
within call, in case their board fails them. They are 
thousands of miles away, among different and often 
hostile races, and with no local resource. In such 
circumstances, the board simply cannot abandon 
them. It must pay their salaries and pay them 
promptly; and it does so. Boards have retrenched 
in many other ways, but the foreign missionary has 
promptly received his full salary. We believe that 
the home churches will sustain the boards in that 
policy, that they do not want them to send a forlorn 
hope into Asia and Africa, and then desert it. This 
policy, however, while only just to the missionaries, 
involves risk to the boards. 

Another difficulty experienced by the boards is the 
uncertainty of income. They do not receive their 
money in advance. An increasing number of churches 
now conduct an " every member canvass " and make 
definite pledges at the beginning of the year. This 
plan is proving highly successful and is rapidly im- 
proving conditions; but a great many churches still 
have no adequate system of raising money. The 
tide of beneficence ebbs and flows in the most 
startling ways, and of course the board is often in 
danger of debt. The wonder is that the debts are 
not larger. Within sixty days of the close of its 



60 THE WHY AND HOW OF FOREIGN MISSIONS 

fiscal year, one board lacked $1,513,000 of the sum 
needed to meet its pledges to the missions, ten 
months having brought only about half of the 
amount needed for the year. If the board had not 
borrowed at the banks during those lean months, 
its missionaries would have suffered for the neces- 
saries of life, and its schools and hospitals would 
have been seriously crippled. Suppose some unfore- 
seen emergency had occurred in the last two months 
to diminish the gifts that were normally expected 
at that period — a financial panic or an outbreak of 
war — debt would have been inevitable. 

Two opposite dangers often complicate the ad- 
ministrative problem of a board. One is the now 
popular plan of merging gifts for all the benevolent, 
educational, and home and foreign missionary ob- 
jects into a general budget for the whole denomina- 
tion in such a way that the identity of each cause 
is likely to be obscured. The other danger arises 
from excessive demands upon the boards for the 
assignment of gifts to special objects. 

The budget plan. The budget plan has marked 
advantages and, when properly used, has a highly 
beneficial effect in systematizing and coordinating 
the work of a church. The peril comes when a 
pastor ceases to present the missionary cause and 
leaves it at the mercy of a distribution of a general 
fund which is divided among various causes on a 
scale of percentages. The peril assumes alarming 
proportions when the people are told that if they 



FOREIGN MISSIONARY ADMINISTRATION 61 

will subscribe to the total budget at the beginning 
of the year, they will not be called upon to make 
supplementary gifts. The objections to this are 
five-fold : 

1. It appeals to an unworthy motive in that 
it tempts men to give to avoid further solicita- 
tion to advance Christ's work, thus offering 
them an immunity bath. 

2. It secures system at the expense of pro- 
portion, since few persons will subscribe to a 
blanket budget at the beginning of a year all 
that they can really afford. 

3. It fails to provide for the increased finan- 
cial ability that comes to many givers in the 
course of a year. 

4. It overlooks the fact that: every congrega- 
tion includes a considerable number of members 
who have not subscribed to the budget. 

5. It eliminates the powerful incentive of 
special knowledge of a given cause. 

Thus a budget may become a wall in front to 
prevent advance instead of a wall behind to prevent 
retreat, stabilizing giving on a low plane. Let us 
keep the budget by all means, but let it be sup- 
plemented by the missionary sermon and special 
offering. Many wise pastors are doing this, stating 
at the time that members who feel that they have 
subscribed in the budget all that they should give 
need not consider themselves called upon for addi- 



62 THE WHY AND HOW OF FOREIGN MISSIONS 

tional gifts, but that those who had not subscribed, 
or who, having subscribed, desire to give more, are 
invited to do so. The author knows from his own 
experience in the pastorate that this method is en- 
tirely practicable, conserving all the advantages of 
a total budget and at the same time avoiding the 
submergence of foreign missions under a general 
movement that otherwise might be somewhat vague. 
The foreign missionary enterprise is not only vast 
but so distinctive in character that* any method that 
obliterates its identity is gravely hazardous. 

Over-specialized giving. While an unspecialized 
budget, blanketing all home and foreign causes, 
creates danger on one side, an over-specialized giv- 
ing makes trouble on the other side. Many donors 
are not content to give simply to foreign missions: 
they want to single out a particular object. If the 
object is assigned by the board from its authorized 
work, trouble is obviated. Indeed most boards en- 
courage such giving. It often makes the cause con- 
crete and strengthens the sense of responsibility for 
its maintenance. The inclinations of earnest and 
friendly people to maintain the work by giving 
through their boards to the objects in which they 
are particularly interested are seldom opposed. 
Within proper limits, they subserve wise ends. 

But when a giver insists upon giving for a par- 
ticular native pupil or worker and to have letters 
from or about him, serious difficulties emerge. The 
larger boards have from thirty to fifty thousand of 



FOREIGN MISSIONARY ADMINISTRATION 63' 

such scholars and workers. These myriads of in- 
dividuals are constantly changing. Imagine the 
plight of a teacher of a school in America if, in 
addition to her labors in and out of the classroom, 
she were expected to correspond with the parents 
of her pupils, tell each pupil what he should write 
to his parents, and correct every letter that he sent. 
The plight of the missionary is rendered far worse 
by the fact that the native children are not accus- 
tomed to write letters and do not know our lan- 
guage, so that when a letter has been laboriously 
put into shape, the unhappy teacher must add to her 
assistance in composition the toil of translating it 
into English, writing it out by hand, and mailing it. 
Such demands upon a missionary are altogether 
unreasonable, and when the giver adds a demand 
for a photograph of a scholar or helper, who never 
had a picture taken in his life, with perhaps no 
photographer within a hundred miles, and no money 
to pay one if he were available, patience is likely to 
be exhausted. 

There are, moreover, administrative perplexities 
involved in such excessively specialized giving. It 
may not occur to the donor that it often has an un- 
fortunate influence on natives to know that they are 
specially supported from America. They are likely 
to be pauperized in spirit and led to a dependence 
upon America demoralizing to themselves and in- 
compatible with that self-reliance that we are 
earnestly endeavoring to inculcate. 



M THE WHY AND HOW OF FOREIGN MISSIONS 

Sometimes, too, the scholar supported does not 
turn out well. All children in mission schools are 
not saints; if they were, missions would not be neces- 
sary. Some have to be dismissed for bad conduct 
Even the Christian helper may prove to be unworthy 
or incompetent and have to be dismissed. The 
heritage of centuries of license and deceit is not 
easily overcome in a few years. Missionaries exer- 
cise great care in selecting native workers and lapses 
are exceptional; but they do occur, and when they 
do, the resultant harm is greatly augmented if par- 
ticular givers in America are involved. 

The station plan. The boards have tried various 
expedients in the effort to harmonize the proper 
wishes of special object givers with the interests of 
the work. One of the best is called the " share " 
or " station plan," which assigns the giver a part of 
the budget which must be raised for the station in 
which the donor wishes his gift used. Money is 
received, not for an individual scholar or native 
worker or school, but for the station. This plan is 
proving satisfactory alike to giver, boards, and mis- 
sionaries. It allows a flexible use of mission funds 
in accordance with the best judgment of the mis- 
sionaries and the changing necessities of the work, 
provides a support for all departments and not 
simply for a few, makes it possible to furnish ade- 
quate information, gives room for steady advance 
of interest and gifts, instead of fixing limits, and 
insures the continuance of the gift to the permanent 



FOREIGN MISSIONARY ADMINISTRATION 65 

work uninfluenced by changes in personnel in the mis- 
sionary staff. 

Does a board ever assign a special object that 
is not in the budget? Certainly. Needed new prop- 
erties may not be incorporated in a budget for cur- 
rent work. Sometimes, too, an emergency develops 
or a board may desire to undertake some additional 
work if the funds can be obtained. The first duty 
of givers is toward the budget, since it includes the 
objects which the missionaries have reported to be 
of the first importance. But when a supporter of 
the budget is prepared to make an extra gift for 
some object that the board approves, he can render 
a valued service. 

The missionary's salary. Between critics who 
think that missionaries get too much and friends 
who think that they get too little, a board must 
choose the middle course. On the one hand the 
nature of missionary work as an unselfish service for 
Christ's sake, the fact that a considerable part of 
its support represents the self-sacrificing gifts of 
people in moderate circumstances, and the further 
fact that a board must not only pay salaries but 
support the extensive and varied work that the mis- 
sionaries superintend, — these considerations forbid 
salaries that would make a missionary career finan- 
cially attractive, appeal to unworthy motives, and 
deprive the missionary enterprise of what the 
Church has always regarded as one of its glories, — 
a denying of self to follow Christ. If it be objected 



66 THE WHY AND HOW OF FOREIGN MISSIONS 

that a missionary could make more money in busi- 
ness, we reply: So could the clergyman at home. 
The Church is not in the business of making money, 
and it cannot compete in salaries with corporations 
that are. Foreign missionary life necessarily in- 
volves some hardships that money cannot eliminate. 

On the other hand, the boards believe that they 
are justified in supporting the missionary on a some- 
what more liberal scale than the average Christian 
worker in America. A minister in his native en- 
vironment among his own people can adapt himself 
to a comparatively modest income with far less 
hardship than a foreign missionary who is an alien 
in a foreign land where living conditions make ex- 
ceptional demands. 

The principle is support rather than compensa- 
tion. Inquiry is made as to the cost of a reasonably 
comfortable living in a given field, and a sum is 
assigned that covers it. The amount varies in dif- 
ferent fields, as the cost of living varies. A married 
man gets more than a single man, because two are 
to be supported instead of one. The birth of a 
child brings a small additional allowance, usually 
$150 or $200 a year, because it means an increased 
expenditure. This policy is sometimes criticized, but 
any parent in the United States can give a critic 
valuable information as to whether a child can be 
fed, clothed, and educated on such a sum. 

Most of the boards make a flat rate for all the 
missionaries of a given region. Other boards grade 



FOREIGN MISSIONARY ADMINISTRATION 67 

salaries according to length of service. But no dis- 
tinction is made on the ground of relative ability or 
responsibility. Evangelists, educators, and physi- 
cians are all paid the same salaries. It is not pos- 
sible to state any figure that would apply to all 
fields. Before the World War the average salary 
was about $550 for a single missionary and $1,100 
for a married one. The change in economic condi- 
tions in recent years has seriously affected the mis- 
sionary, and the boards have therefore increased the 
rate so that the average rate for a married man is 
now about $1,500. This, with free rent, children's 
allowances, and ordinary medical attendance, carry 
the total for a typical family to about $2,000 in 
most fields, and to a higher sum in lands where the 
cost of living is greater. 

11 It is misleading to say that ' a dollar will go 
farther in a heathen land than in America.' It may, 
perhaps, in the purchase of some native supplies, 
but not in the articles which Europeans and Ameri- 
cans deem necessary. The average mission land 
does not produce the kinds of food and clothing that 
a white man has to use, and the missionary must 
usually buy in the homeland, paying the same price 
that the average American at home pays and, in 
addition, the cost of freight across a continent or an 
ocean, usually both." 1 

It should be borne in mind that the missionary 
has many calls upon his charity. There is probably 

1 The Foreign Missionary. 



68 THE WHY AND HOW OF FOREIGN MISSIONS 

no other Christian worker in the world upon whom 
they press so heavily. He is among multitudes of 
poverty-stricken people. There are no charitable 
agencies, as at home, to help in hearing the burden. 
The sick and starving are continually appealing to 
him. Moreover, as he organizes the converts into 
churches, he impresses upon them the duty of giving 
as a Christian grace, and in order to make his teach- 
ing effective, he must set the example. We do not 
know of any missionary who gives less than one 
tenth of his salary in these ways, and many give a 
much larger proportion. If Christians at home 
would give as liberally as missionaries, the whole 
enterprise would be far more generously supported. 

In the light of these facts, the absurdity of the 
criticism that " missionaries live in luxury" will 
readily be seen. Missionaries who can " live in 
luxury " in such circumstances must be remarkable 
financiers. 

Scientific study of the missionary task. Viewing 
missionary administration as a whole, there is un- 
doubtedly occasional ground for criticism. Every 
board would admit that, in deciding a myriad of 
perplexing questions, many of them difficult and on 
which good men differ, some errors of judgment 
may occur. It is probable, however, that if any 
one were to make a list of the real defects in present 
administrative methods, he would probably learn 
on inquiry that the boards already know those de- 
fects and are earnestly striving to remedy them. 



FOREIGN MISSIONARY ADMINISTRATION 69 

All the boards are giving increasing attention to 
the principles of an intelligent and comprehensive 
policy. They feel that the days of sentimentalism 
in foreign missions have passed. They are not con- 
ducting a crusade, but a settled campaign, and they 
are planning it with all the skill and prudence they 
possess. 

The annual meetings of the Foreign Missions 
Conference of North America bring together the 
officers and representatives of about fifty boards in 
the United States and Canada for conference as to 
the best methods for carrying on missionary opera- 
tions, and its executive committee (the Committee 
of Reference and Counsel) is active throughout the 
year. 

Notable advance in cooperative work and the 
united study of mission problems has been made 
since the first edition of this book was published. 
The World Missionary Conference in Edinburgh in 
19 10 and the Continuation Committee which it ap- 
pointed, the Standing Committee of the Conference 
of Missionary Societies in Great Britain and Ireland, 
the Panama Congress on Christian Work in Latin 
America in 19 16 and the Committee on Cooperation 
in Latin America appointed by it, the International 
Missionary Conference at Crans, Switzerland, in 
June, 1920, and the provision that it made for form- 
ing an International Missionary Committee to take 
the place of the Continuation Committee, the large 
number of books on missionary methods and policies 



70 THE WHY AND HOW OF FOREIGN MISSIONS 

and of valuable articles in such periodicals as The 
International Review of Missions and The Mis- 
sionary Review of the World, as well as in the 
various denominational periodicals — these and other 
movements that might be noted indicate the thor- 
oughness with which the whole enterprise of mod- 
ern mission work is being carefully studied. 

The men who direct missionary work regard it as 
of divine authority as well as of beneficent character. 
They reverently look to the Holy Spirit as the divine 
administrator of the enterprise, believing that their 
chief reliance must be upon his guidance. They 
realize that God is not limited to human methods* 
and that the failure of a cherished plan may not 
argue injury to the cause, but only defects in the 
plan. They feel that their only safety is to keep 
close to Christ and to seek to know his will. Prayer, 
therefore, begins and pervades all deliberations, and 
wings every appeal for funds. Heavy as are the 
anxieties and responsibilities, every board counts it 
an honor and a privilege to represent the Church 
of God in the administration of this noblest of all 
Christian activities. 

References for Further Reading 

r A Study of Christian Missions^ Clarke (13), VI. 

The Missionary Enterprise, Bliss (n), VIII. 

The Missionary Outlook in the Light of the War (9), XVIL 

The Democratic Movement in Asia, Dennett (2), X. 

The Gospel and the New World, Speer (8), XIII. 



IV 

THE MISSIONARY— QUALIFICATIONS 
AND APPOINTMENT 

What kind of person is the missionary? Much 
might be said about the quality of foreign mission- 
aries as a class. They are carefully selected men 
and women, the best types of Western Christian 
character and culture. 

We would not set them apart from their fellow- 
men as if they formed a separate species. We join 
the missionary in protesting against the impression 
that he is essentially different from other good peo- 
ple. There is no halo about his head. He is not 
a saint on a pedestal. He does not stand with 
clasped hands and uplifted eyes, gazing rapturously 
into heaven. We have met more than a thousand 
missionaries, and we have been impressed by the 
fact that they are neither angels nor ascetics, but 
able, sensible, and devoted Christian workers. The 
typical man is more like a high grade Christian 
business man of the homeland than a professional 
cleric; the woman is an educated, capable worker. 
The missionary is a man of affairs. He makes no 
pathetic plea for sympathy for himself, but he 
wants cooperation in his work, and to have people 
at home feel that the work is theirs as well as his. 

71 



n THE WHY AND HOW OF FOREIGN MISSIONS 

Life on the mission field. The physical hardships 
of missionary life are less than commonly supposed. 
Steam and electricity have materially lessened isola- 
tion. Mail, which a generation ago arrived only 
two or three times a year, now comes once or twice 
a week. Swift steamships bring many conveniences 
of civilization that were formerly unobtainable. 
The average missionary has a comfortable residence 
and sufficient food and clothing. His labors, too, 
have been lightened in important respects by the toil 
of his predecessors. He finds languages reduced 
to written form, textbooks to aid him in his studies, 
and a variety of substantial helps of other kinds. 
There are fields where conditions are still very try- 
ing, particularly in remote interior stations and in 
some tropical lands. But most missionaries do not 
regard the purely material discomforts of life in a 
non-Christian land as deserving of special emphasis. 

Mental strain. There is loneliness and isolation. 
This is not felt so much in the port cities, which 
usually have foreign communities, occasional visi- 
tors, and frequent communication with the rest of 
the world, but in the interior the isolation is very 
depressing. Letters from home friends, which are at 
first numerous, gradually come less frequently, until 
relatives and board secretaries become almost the 
only correspondents, and the lonely missionary feels 
that he is forgotten by the world of which he was 
once a part — " out of sight, out of mind." 

At home while we are conscious of a downward 



THE MISSIONARY 73 

pressure we are also conscious of a sustaining and up- 
lifting force. Few of us realize to what an extent 
we are upborne by environment. There is every- 
thing to buoy us — the companionship of friends, 
the restraints of a wholesome public sentiment, and 
the inspiration of many meetings and conferences. 
We are situated morally, as one is sometimes situ- 
ated physically in a crowd, so wedged in that we 
cannot easily fall. But on the foreign field there 
is little to hold one up and much to pull one down. 
There is no public Christian sentiment to sustain, 
few associations to cheer, no support from large 
numbers of neighboring friends and ministers. 

Then there is the weary monotony of missionary 
life. The novelty of new scenes soon wears off, and 
the missionary is confronted by prosaic realities. It 
is impossible for the minister in the United States 
to understand the depressing sameness of life in the 
interior of China. The few associates of the mis- 
sionary are subject to the debilitating influences 
which depress him. It is difficult for any woman 
in America to know what it means for Mrs. A to 
live from one year's end to another without seeing 
another white woman except Mrs. B, who, though 
a devoted missionary, is not exactly the person that 
Mrs. A would have chosen for an intimate asso- 
ciate if she had been consulted. We at home can 
choose our friends, and if Mr. X is not congenial, 
we do not have to be intimate with him; but the 
missionary has no choice. He must accept the in- 



74 THE WHY AND HOW OF FOREIGN MISSIONS 

timacy of the family assigned to his station whether 
he likes it or not. 

Separation from children. The separation from 
children is harder still. There comes a time in the 
life of every missionary parent when he realizes 
that he cannot properly educate his child amid the 
appallingly unfavorable conditions of a heathen 
land. The whole tone of society is so low that it 
is all that the missionary can possibly do to keep 
himself up to the level of the homeland. Indeed, 
he is painfully conscious that he frequently fails to 
do it, and that one of the urgent necessities of a 
furlough is not so much to get physical rest, as to 
tone himself up again mentally and spiritually in a 
Christian atmosphere. What, then, can be expected 
for his immature child but degeneration? 

The average missionary therefore must send his 
children to the homeland to be educated. We hope 
that none of the mothers who read these pages will 
ever have occasion to know what a heart strain is 
involved in placing ten thousand miles in distance 
and years in time between parent and child. There 
are chambers of the human heart that are never 
opened save by a baby's hand. After the tendrils 
of the soul's affection have wound round a child, 
after a soft, tiny hand has been felt on the face, 
and the little one's life has literally grown into that 
of the mother, separation is a fearful wrench. 

Living amid unrelievable distress. There is, too, 
the torture which every sensitive mind feels in look- 




The missionary at work in the Delhi district, India 

A missionary family being carried across a high 
mountain pass on the Tibetan border 

The great hardships incident to evangelistic itineration are in 
some countries mitigated, and the missionaries' time and strength 
conserved by automobiles and tents. In wilder regions native 
carriers and primitive conditions still prevail. 



THE MISSIONARY 75 

ing upon suffering that one cannot relieve. Sir 
William Hunter said that there are a hundred mil- 
lions of people in India who never know the sensa- 
tion of a full stomach. An equally great number 
in China live so near starvation that a drought or 
a flood precipitates an appalling famine. In most 
lands one sees disease and bodily injury so untended, 
or what is worse, mistended, that the resultant con- 
dition is as dreadful as it is intolerable. Dr. John 
G. Kerr of Canton was so overcome by the suf- 
ferings of the neglected insane in that great city that 
he could not endure them, and when he could not 
get help from America, he started an asylum at his 
own risk. Mrs. A. T. Mills of Chefoo felt driven 
to the same course by the pitiful condition of deaf- 
mute children. Heathenism is grievously hard on 
the poor and the sick and the crippled, while the 
woes of women in maternity are awful beyond 
description. Yet, amid such daily scenes, the mis- 
sionary must live. 

A morally suffocating atmosphere. Then there 
is the mental suffering which comes to any pure- 
minded man or woman in constant contact with the 
most debasing forms of sin. Most Asiatics, Afri- 
cans, and Latin Americans have no sense of wrong 
regarding many of the matters that we have been 
taught to regard as evil. The first chapter of the 
Epistle to the Romans is still a literal description 
of a large part of the non-Christian world. As for 
licentiousness, nowhere else in all Asia is it worse 



56 THE WHY AND HOW OF FOREIGN MISSIONS 

than in Japan, the most intelligent and progressive 
of all Asiatic nations. 

We do not forget that there is immorality in 
America, but here it is compelled to lurk in secret 
places. It is opposed not only by the churches, but 
by civil law and public sentiment. In Asia, vice is 
public and shameless, enshrined in the very temples. 
We saw the filthiest representations of it in the great 
Lama Temple in the capital of China. India, 
which boasts of its ancient civilization, makes its 
most sacred places literally reek with vice. The 
approaches to some famous Japanese temples are 
lined with houses of ill-repute. The missionary 
often finds his own motives grossly misjudged by 
hostile priests and prurient people. The typical 
Asiatic scoffs at the idea that the missionaries come 
to him for an unselfish purpose. A single man is 
often misunderstood; a single woman is nearly al- 
ways misunderstood. Non-Christian customs do 
not provide for the pure unmarried woman, and 
charges are freely circulated, and sometimes pla- 
carded on walls or buildings in ways that are most 
trying. 

"And ye would not." Another phase of the 
strain of missionary life is the spiritual burden. To 
look upon myriads of human beings who are bear- 
ing life's loads unaided and meeting life's sorrows 
unhelped, to offer them the assistance that they 
need for time and for eternity, and to have the offer 
fall upon deaf ears — this is a grievous thing. Noth- 



THE MISSIONARY 77 

ing in the missionary life is harder than this for 
the man or the woman who has gone to the foreign 
field from true missionary motives. It is akin to the 
strain Jesus was enduring when he cried with a break- 
ing heart: " O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, that killeth the 
prophets, and stoneth them that are sent unto her! 
how often would I have gathered her children to- 
gether, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under 
her wings, and ye would not." 

A task for heroes. The factor of physical danger 
is not so common now as formerly. In most lands 
missionaries are almost if not quite as safe from 
violence as we are at home. And yet in the widely 
extended mission field there is hardly a day when, 
missionaries are not in peril somewhere either from 
mobs or robbers or civil strife which places them 
between hostile forces, or war conditions which in- 
volve them as well as the natives. Recent instances 
occurred in Persia, Turkey, Syria, China, and 
Africa. Supplies have been cut off, property de- 
stroyed, lives menaced. 

When the savage Kurds poured down from the 
mountains upon the Urumia plain in Persia, over 
;i 2,000 of the frightened Nestorian Christians fled 
for refuge to the mission compound, bringing their 
babies and their sick, but no food and no clothing 
except the scanty garments they had on at the time 
of their flight. The missionaries cared for them as 
best they could; but in the crowded conditions that 
necessarily prevailed, the lack of sufficient food and 



78 THE WHY AND HOW OF FOREIGN MISSIONS 

shelter, and with the diseases that many of the 
refugees brought with them, pestilence soon broke 
out and the death rate mounted rapidly. The mis- 
sionaries worked literally day and night with self- 
forgetting and splendid devotion. Thirteen of the 
eighteen at the station were stricken with typhus or 
typhoid fever, and several died either then or after- 
ward as the direct result of the strain and exposure* 

The critic impatiently asks: u Why do mission- 
aries persist in remaining at their posts, when they 
know that they are jeopardizing their lives and 
bringing anxiety to their relatives and embarrass- 
ment to their government? Why do they not fly 
to the safer ports, as the British and American con- 
suls often advise them to do? " 

Why? Partly for the same reason that the 
Spartans did not retreat at Thermopylae;, that the 
engineer does not jump when he sees that death is 
ahead, that the mother does not think of herself 
when her boy is stricken with diphtheria. Shall the 
missionaries leave the native Christians to be scat- 
tered, the mission buildings to be destroyed, the 
labor of years to be undone, the Christian name dis- 
graced? The missionary is a soldier; his station is 
the post of duty. 

James Chalmers of New Guinea, of whom Rob- 
ert Louis Stevenson said: " He's as big as a church," 
and who was finally clubbed to death and eaten by 
cannibals, declared that " the word ' sacrifice ' ought 
never to be used in Christ's service." And in a 



THE MISSIONARY 79 

speech in Exeter Hall fifteen years before his death 
he exclaimed: " Recall the twenty-one years, give 
me back all its experiences, give me its shipwrecks, 
give me its standing in the face of death, give it me 
surrounded with savages with spears and clubs, give 
it me back with spears flying about me, with the club 
knocking me to the ground — give it me back, and 
I will still be your missionary." 

Such missionaries form the u far-flung battle 
line" of the Churc;h of God. We heard much and 
rightly of the soldiers of our country during the 
World War, and we gladly join in paying them all 
honor. But let us also honor the soldiers of the 
Cross — few, scattered, isolated, scantily equipped, 
in hot and unhealthy climates, far from home and 
its privileges, enlisted not for a campaign, but for 
a life work. 

That noble Jew, the Hon. Henry Morgenthau, 
recently American Ambassador to Turkey, wrote: 
" A residence of over two years in Turkey has given 
me the best possible opportunity to see the work of 
the American missionaries and to know the workers 
intimately. Without hesitation I declare my high 
opinion of their keen insight into the real needs of 
the people of Turkey. The missionaries have the 
right idea. They go straight to the foundations and 
provide these intellectual, physical, moral, and reli- 
gious benefits upon which alone any true civilization 
can be built. The missionaries are the devoted 
friends of the people of Turkey, and they are my 



80 THE WHY AND HOW OF FOREIGN MISSIONS 

friends. They are brave, intelligent, and unselfish 
men and women. I have come to respect all and love 
many of them. As an American citizen I have been 
proud of them. As an American Ambassador to 
Turkey I have been delighted to help them." 

Many foreign mission fields are in lands which 
were directly involved in the war. Frequently the 
missionaries were exposed to physical danger. 
Sometimes they were between the contending forces, 
at others in peril from the lawless acts of enemies. 
In scores of places they were endangered by epi- 
demics or pestilence. They were in the midst of 
cholera and plague in Turkey and China, of typhus 
fever in Syria and Persia, of famine and flood in 
iShantung and Chih-li, and of fighting and mob vio- 
lence in a dozen places. 

And yet they might have escaped from all this. 
The boards gave them freedom to leave their fields; 
but, save when they were forced out by conditions 
feeyond their control, they remained at their posts 
of duty with fortitude undaunted, with fidelity 
superb. Practically all of the relief funds for the 
Armenians, Syrians, Persians, and Chinese were dis- 
tributed by missionaries and could not have been 
distributed but for them. 

Edward Everett Hale's poem, " All Souls," elo- 
quently voices the debt which succeeding generations 
owe to the courage and fidelity of the forgotten mis- 
sionary as well as to the pioneer settler: 



THE MISSIONARY 8l 

" What was his name? I do not know his name: 
I only know he heard God's voice and came, 

Brought all he loved across the sea, 
To live and work for God — and me; 

No blaring trumpet sounded out his fame; 
He lived, he died; I do not know his name. 

" No form of bronze and no memorial stones 
Show me the place where lie his moldering bones. 
Only a cheerful city stands, 
Built by his hardened hands; 
Only ten thousand homes, 
Where every day 
The cheerful play 
Of love and hope and courage comes. 
These are his monument and these alone; 
There is no form of bronze and no memorial stone." 



Careful selection of new missionaries. It is evi- 
dent that great care should be exercised in selecting 
men and women for such a service, and the boards 
are exercising it. 

It is a mistake to suppose that any nice, pious 
youth can become a foreign missionary. The critic 
who imagines that weaklings or milksops can be 
appointed might apply for appointment and see. 
Large churches, after spending a year or more in 
considering scores of highly recommended ministers, 
sometimes call an unworthy man. So a board occa- 
sionally errs. But as a rule the rigorous methods 
now employed quickly reject incompetent candidates, 
while the increasing missionary interest in colleges 
and seminaries gives the choicest material to select 



82 THE WHY AND HOW OF FOREIGN MISSIONS 

from. Boards do not appoint the pale enthusiast 
or the romantic young lady, but the sturdy, practical, 
energetic man of affairs, the woman of poise and 
sense and character. It is not the policy to send a 
multitude of common men, but a comparatively 
small number of picked men, the highest types of 
our Christian character and culture. 

We would not give the impression that the boards 
insist upon an impracticable standard, nor should 
modesty deter any young man or woman from ap- 
plying. The tests imposed are not merely scholastic. 
Sometimes the honor members of a graduating class 
are rejected and men of lesser academic distinction 
appointed, because investigation shows that the lat- 
ter give better promise of real usefulness. High 
grades sometimes coexist with serious defects of 
temperament. Many of the prize men of our col- 
leges are never heard of in after life, while others, 
who, like General Grant, make no special mark as 
students, develop splendid qualities. 

Health. Foreign missionaries often live and work 
in such trying climates, amid such insanitary sur- 
roundings, exposed to such malignant diseases, and 
under such nervous strain that only men and women 
of sound constitution and vigorous health should be 
appointed. It is important, therefore, to ascertain 
whether one is free from physical defects or tend- 
encies that might shorten life or impair usefulness. 
44 Nothing hinders one's work like dying." This 
question of health is one to be determined, not by 



THE MISSIONARY 83 

the applicant, but by a physician, and the boards 
insist on a rigid examination, usually by physicians 
of their own selection. 

Age. After thirty, ability to acquire a free, col- 
loquial use of a foreign tongue rapidly diminishes. 
Moreover, one's ability to adapt himself to a dif- 
ferent environment becomes less easy as the years 
pass. It is better that the transfer to new condi- 
tions and the study of a difficult language should 
begin before either the physical or intellectual life 
becomes so fixed that it is hard to acquire new ideas. 
The probable duration of effective service also 
shortens rapidly as one moves toward middle life. 
For these reasons, boards do not like to accept any- 
one over thirty-two or three, unless other qualifica- 
tions are exceptionally high, in which case the age of 
acceptance may be extended. 

The training of the missionary. Graduation 
from both college and professional school is ordi- 
narily required in men, and at least high school 
training in women. Boards insist, too, that the 
student's record shall be such as to show that he 
possesses more than average ability. A consider- 
able part of the work of the missionary is intellec- 
tual. His daily problems require a trained mind. 
In many fields too, he comes into contact with na- 
tives whose mental acumen is by no means con- 
temptible. While, therefore, a board will not reject 
a candidate because he does not stand near the head 
of his class, it will reject him if his grades indicate 



84 THE WHY AND HOW OF FOREIGN MISSIONS 

mediocrity. The considerations that occasionally 
lead the Church at home to ordain a man who has 
not had a full course may lead a board to send one 
to the foreign field, but such cases are exceptions. 
Graduates of technical schools are needed every 
year by some boards. Physicians are always in de- 
mand. Missionary colleges and boarding-schools 
frequently call for teachers. Sometimes mechanical 
and electrical engineers are needed for special 
chairs. Several boards seek graduates of industrial 
and agricultural colleges for industrial schools. 
Hospitals ask for trained nurses as matrons and 
head nurses. Mission presses call for superinten- 
dents who understand printing, while some of the 
larger missions can use to excellent advantage lay- 
men of commercial experience as treasurers, archi- 
tects, builders, and business agents. The number 
that can be used in some of these ways is not great, 
but it is rapidly increasing. The old days, when 
a graduate of a theological seminary was expected 
to do anything and everything that might be assigned 
him, have passed. Missionary work has become 
more highly specialized, and it calls to an increasing 
degree for men and women of specialized training. 
A large service to candidates and boards alike is 
being rendered by the Board of Missionary Prepara- 
tion, which is an interdenominational committee 
representing the missionary boards of nearly all the 
Protestant denominations in the United States and 
Canada, and which is doing much to aid educational 



THE MISSIONARY 85 

institutions in developing the special courses that are 
needed and in advising candidates who desire to fit 
themselves for particular forms of service. 

Boards make careful inquiry as to executive 
ability and force of character. Many a man can do 
good service in the homeland who could not succeed 
on the foreign field. The duties of a missionary are 
not like those of a pastor at home, who usually suc- 
ceeds to an established work, who finds methods 
already so largely determined that his duty is rather 
one of continuation or modification than of origina- 
tion, and who has wise counselors in his church offi- 
cers. The missionary's functions are more those of 
a superintendent. He must be a leader and or- 
ganizer. 

Common sense is a much rarer quality than might 
be supposed, and not a few candidates go down 
under the searching inquiries that boards make re- 
garding it. Some brilliant men lack the balance of 
judgment, the homely good sense, that are indis- 
pensable in a useful missionary. The direction of 
native helpers, the expenditure of considerable sums 
of money, the superintendence of building opera- 
tions, the settlement of questions that are constantly 
arising among native Christians, the adjustment to 
all sorts of persons and conditions — these and other 
matters that might be mentioned cannot prudently 
be committed to unbalanced men, however pious or 
healthy or intellectual. The quality of good sense 
is so often developed in the school of privation that 



86 THE WHY AND HOW OF FOREIGN MISSIONS 

some of the best missionaries have been men who 
were forced by poverty to work their own way 
through college, for the necessity that was thus laid 
upon them developed those qualities of alertness, 
self-reliance, and sound judgment that are of high 
value in missionary life. 

Firmness of purpose. The missionary movement 
Is not a spasmodic crusade. The romantic halo 
about it is chiefly in books. The work is always 
hard, and the conditions are often trying. Appoint- 
ment should not be sought, therefore, by those who 
are prone to rapid alternations of feeling, or who 
are easily discouraged, or who are incapable of per- 
severing toil. The student who has volunteered 
under the impulse of emotional excitement should 
give his new purpose a reasonable testing period be- 
fore making application for appointment. The 
man who is always conceiving great projects and 
never carrying them out is another type that is not 
desired. Most boards have had experience with 
such missionaries and do not want any more. Mis- 
sionary employment is expected to be for life, and 
no one should apply who is not willing to consecrate 
himself irrevocably to it, who cannot make light of 
privations and u endure hardness as a good soldier 
of Jesus Christ." A veteran missionary, in asking 
for an associate, wrote: u Send us a despiser of dif- 
ficulties, who will not be discouraged under the most 
adverse circumstances, who will unite unflinching 
courage with consummate tact, know how to do 



THE MISSIONARY 87 

impossible things and maintain a pertinacity that 
borders on stubbornness with a suavity of manners 
that softens asperity." This is expecting a good 
deal of human nature. Boards can profitably use 
a good many missionaries who are not Pauls. But 
the ideal is excellent. 

The gift of living with others. Ability to work 
harmoniously with others is a prime qualification. 
The mission circle is the worst place in the world 
for a quarrelsome man or woman. One such mis- 
sionary will wreck the happiness and mar the effi- 
ciency of a whole station. No degree of ability or 
force of character can make a missionary of that 
type tolerable. Indeed, the stronger he is, the more 
trouble he makes. Then there is the man, or 
woman, who takes personal offense when his or her 
plans are opposed. Most troublesome of all is the 
type of Christian who is so certain that God, in an- 
swer to prayer, has shown him what ought to be 
done, that he is inaccessible to the arguments of 
others. It does not occur to him that his associates 
also pray and that God may guide them as well as 
him. A vast amount of unregenerate pugnacity and 
narrow-mindedness in this world passes for " fidelity 
to the truth as I see it." 

A cheerful spirit is as essential as ability to work 
with others. Some otherwise very excellent people 
are by temperament despondent. They magnify 
difficulties and imagine them where they do not 
exist. Present to them any proposal, and they will 



88 THE WHY AND HOW OF FOREIGN MISSIONS 

see all the objections to it first. They never weary 
of bemoaning the shortcomings of their fellow- 
Christians. They walk about Zion and mark the 
defects thereof and tell them to the public. They 
remind one of the old Scotch elder, who lugubriously 
said of his church of three hundred members: 
" There be nae real Christians here — except masel' 
an' Sandy; an' sometimes I hae ma doots aboot 
Sandy." u Good Lord, deliver us!" is the prayer 
of the missionaries already on the field regarding 
all these types. 

The candidate who holds opinions of doctrine 
or polity that are not in accord with those of the 
Church with which he would be associated as a mis- 
sionary falls under the general head of incompati- 
bility. Variance of this kind may be, and ordinarily 
is, held from thoroughly praiseworthy motives, and 
it is not within the province of a board to try to 
persuade a candidate to change his views. It simply 
notes the fact that he probably could not harmonize 
with missionaries who hold different views. This 
objection would not, of course, apply to those varia- 
tions of belief that are within the recognized limits 
of evangelical faith as held by the Church to which 
the candidate belongs. In no denomination is the 
ministry entirely homogeneous as to questions of 
doctrine, nor do the boards insist that the missionary 
body shall be. There are the same differences of 
this kind among missionaries that are to be found 
at home. We are referring now to those questions 



THE MISSIONARY 89 

that would differentiate a candidate from the whole 
body of his associates and introduce embarrassing 
complications among them. Hobbies or eccentricities 
of any kind are considered objectionable as tending 
to divide those who ought not to be divided and to 
affect injuriously the influence of the missionary 
body upon the natives, who are always quick to ob- 
serve and to comment upon such differences. 

Marriage. Some boards require their men to go 
out single, but permit them to marry after learning 
the language and proving their fitness for missionary 
life. Other boards advise this course, but leave it 
to the judgment of the candidate. The objections 
to deferring marriage usually come from families on 
the field who do not feel prepared to board young 
men. Traders and Roman Catholic priests usually 
keep " bachelors' hall," and where two or three 
young missionaries are together, there is no valid 
reason why they cannot do so for a year or two if 
necessary. No Protestant board advocates the 
celibacy of missionaries, but almost all have certain 
forms of work that can better be done, for a time 
at least, by single men. A candidate, therefore, who 
has not already arranged for marriage, need not 
feel that he is under any pressure to do so. If, 
after a few years on the field, he wishes to marry, 
the board will send his fiancee to him, provided, of 
course, she is found to possess the necessary quali- 
fications for missionary life. 

The fiancee must make a separate application, and 



90 THE WHY AND HOW OF FOREIGN MISSIONS 

it will be as carefully investigated as that of the man 
whom she is to marry. The wives of missionaries 
are regarded as associate missionaries. It is ex- 
pected that, so far as is consistent with their strength 
and household duties, they will learn the language 
and take part in missionary work. 

No woman should go to the foreign field sim- 
ply because she is the wife of a missionary. 
Life on the mission field is usually so trying, 
from the point of view of home standards, that the 
wife who is not in deep spiritual sympathy with 
her husband's missionary work will almost certainly 
become lonely, discontented, and depressed. She 
may successfully fight against this for a time, but in 
the end she will not only become unhappy herself, 
but she will make her husband unhappy, and it is 
not improbable that her health will give way and 
that he will be compelled to give up his life's plans 
and return home with an invalid wife. Most boards 
have had such costly experiences of this kind that 
they are very cautious about repeating them. 

So many candidates have to be declined on account 
of their families that, while boards cordially recog- 
nize their privilege and duty in relation to children 
that are born on the field, they hesitate where there 
are children prior to application for appointment. 
It costs much more to transport such families to the 
field and more to house them after their arrival. A 
mother finds it difficult to get the time and strength 
for language study, and there is always a possibility 



THE MISSIONARY 91 

that such missionaries will have to resign because 
they find the foreign field unfavorable to the health 
of their children. Ordinarily, therefore, boards do 
not like to appoint candidates who already have 
children, though they do this in exceptional cases. 

Christian character and spiritual life. This is an 
indispensable qualification. No matter how healthy 
or able or well-educated, the successful candi- 
date must have a sound, well-developed Christian 
character. Boards do not commission mere physi- 
cians or school-teachers, but missionaries. The 
medical graduate who simply wishes to practise his 
profession in a mission hospital in Asia, the profes- 
sor whose ambition is only to build up a flourishing 
school, the youth who wants to see strange lands and 
peoples or who is animated by the spirit of adven- 
ture are not wanted. Missionary work in all its 
forms is distinctly spiritual in spirit and aim. David 
Livingstone, when asked what were the chief re- 
quirements of a successful missionary, gave as the 
first, " a goodly portion of God's own loving yearn- 
ings over the souls of the heathen." Boards, there- 
fore, place great stress on the candidate's spiritual 
experience and his motives for seeking missionary 
service. The missionary should be above everything 
else a spiritual guide. Inquiries on this point are 
carefully made, and if there is reason to doubt the 
spiritual influence of a candidate, he is certain to 
be declined. 

Other considerations may emerge in particular 



93 THE WHY AND HOW OF FOREIGN MISSIONS 

cases. Some experience in teaching or Christian 
work, and a knowledge of music in women candi- 
dates and of bookkeeping in men, while not usually 
required, add to the attractiveness of an application. 
The qualifications that have been mentioned, how- 
ever, are those that are generally sought for by the 
boards. Taken together in this way they may ap- 
pear to constitute a formidable list, but this enumera- 
tion should not ease the conscience of any young man 
or woman who is considering the question. 

Applying for missionary service. Ill health, im- 
perfect education, dependent relatives, inability to 
work harmoniously with others, and age that for- 
bids hope of acquiring a difficult language are valid 
reasons for not applying; but unless some such posi- 
tive disqualification is known to exist, the proper 
course is to correspond with the secretary of the 
board and he will gladly give all needed counsel. 
A general sense of unfitness for so noble a calling 
is not an adequate reason for failure to apply. 
Such modesty is likely to be the refuge of those 
who are quite willing to have an excuse to stay at 
home. One should not be deterred because of re- 
ports that men are being rejected for want of funds 
or for any other reason. The financial situation may 
have changed or an unexpected vacancy may have 
occurred. The fact that an apparently good man 
of one's acquaintance has been declined is not a rea- 
son for discouragement, for the board may have 
discovered some defect that his friends did not sus- 



THE MISSIONARY 93 

pect, or the trouble may have been with his fiancee. 
No matter what one hears, if he feels that he ought 
to go to the foreign field, he should send in his 
application and place upon the board the responsi- 
bility of dealing with it. 

There is no disgrace in being rejected, for it will 
readily be seen that a number of the reasons men- 
tioned above may be providential in character, and, 
while hindering one's going to the foreign field, may 
not hinder a successful life for Christ in the home- 
land. Moreover, the boards consider all applica- 
tions as confidential, so that the fact of rejection 
need not be known beyond the limited circle of the 
friends whose private opinions it is necessary for 
the board to seek. 

The procedure in making application is simple : 
write to the secretary of the board concerned, and 
he will send a set of application blanks and all need- 
ful information. The secretary, on receiving the 
formal application, corresponds with those who 
know the candidate. Most boards have a printed 
list of questions for this purpose, as they have 
learned from experience that, while most people will 
tell the truth, they will not tell the whole truth unless 
definite questions are asked and a specific answer 
insisted upon. The time required for this investi- 
gation is ordinarily about two or three months, 
though in special cases it may be shorter or longer. 

The call to foreign service. How may one know 
whether he is called of God to be a missionary? 



94 THE WHY AND HOW OF FOREIGN MISSIONS 

The divine summons is made known in a variety of 
ways. Some men are conscious of a call almost as 
distinct and commanding as that of the ApostLe 
Paul. Probably few have such an experience, and 
the lack of it should not be regarded as evidence 
that one has no call to missionary service. God's 
will is often made known in quieter ways. Many 
theological students make the mistake of assuming 
that the absence of an external peremptory call 
means that they should stay at home. The resylt 
is that scores look for home pastorates because they 
"have no call to go abroad." The assumption 
should be just the reverse. If God calls a man to 
preach the gospel at all, surely the presumption is 
in favor of the field where the gospel is least known 
and most needed. With an average of one minister 
for every 514 people at home and candidates throng- 
ing every vacant pulpit, while abroad there is an 
average of but one for every 174,000 of the popu- 
lation, with all the doors of opportunity wide open 
and mission boards vainly appealing for more men, 
it is absurd for the average student to assume that 
he should stay in America unless a voice from 
heaven summons him to go to the needy millions 
of Asia or Africa. In the language of Keith- 
Falconer: "While vast continents are shrouded in 
almost utter darkness, and hundreds of millions 
suffer the horrors of heathenism or of Islam, the 
burden of proof lies upon you to show that the cir- 
cumstances in which God has placed you were meant 



THE MISSIONARY 95^ 

by him to keep you out of the foreign mission field. " 
The plea that there are needs at home is mere 
quibbling, in view not only of the facts already 
stated, but of the further fact that about ninety- 
eight out of every hundred students are staying at 
home. It is probably fair to say of any given stu- 
dent that there is no need of him in the home field 
that is at all commensurate with the need of him 
on the foreign field. His proper attitude, there- 
fore, should not be, u Why should I go as a foreign 
missionary," but, " Why should I not go?" The 
late James Gilmour, the famous missionary to the 
Mongol tribes, wrote of this period in his student 
life: " Even on the low ground of common sense I 
seemed to be called to be a missionary. Is the 
Kingdom a harvest field? Then I thought it rea- 
sonable that I should seek the work where the work 
was most abundant and the workers fewest." 

References for Further Reading 

The Missionary Outlook in the Light of the War (9), XVI. 
The Missionary Enterprise, Bliss (n), IX. 

Persons desiring to know the requirements of candidates for 
missionary service under their mission board should write to the 
secretary of their foreign board for information and for denom- 
inational pamphlets on the subject. The catalog of publications 
of the Student Volunteer Movement, 25 Madison Avenue, New 
York City, lists much helpful material for those who wish to 
investigate missionary service. 

The Board of Missionary Preparation, 25 Madison Avenue, 
New York City, provides valuable reports and pamphlets on the 
preparation of missionaries for different types of work and for 
different fields. A list of these reports may be secured by address- 
ing a request to the Board. 



THE MISSIONARY AT WORK 

A many-sided task. The variety and scope of 
the foreign missionary's work are in sharp contrast 
with the work of the minister at home. The latter 
hardly realizes to what an extent his efforts are rein- 
forced by the results of centuries of religious teach- 
lands, and therefore the missionary must create 
ing. These helps do not exist in most non-Christian 
them. He must found not only churches, but 
schools, hospitals, printing-presses, kindergartens, 
orphanages, and the various other kinds of Chris- 
tian benevolent work carried on in this country. He 
must train a native ministry, erect buildings, trans- 
late and print books and tracts and catechisms. The 
gospel must be so presented as to touch the lives 
of men at many points, and they must be helped in 
making the adaptation to new conditions. In some 
lands, the missionary must even teach the men how 
to make clothing, to build houses, and to cultivate 
the soil; while his wife must show the women how 
to sew and to cook, to care for children and to 
make a decent home. 

The phrase u missionary at work " is therefore 
not a misnomer. Those who imagine that u mis- 

96 



THE MISSIONARY AT WORK 97 

sionaries have an easy time " little realize the heavy 
and persistent toil that is involved. Foreign mis- 
sionaries are among the hardest worked men in the 
world. Much of this work, too, is done in trying 
climates and amid conditions that tax the strength 
and nerves. The typical hospital, with work enough 
for several physicians, has but one medical mission- 
ary and he must perform every operation and attend 
every sick patient, with only such assistance as one 
or two natives may be able to render. Schools, 
which at home would have a half-dozen or more 
teachers, have but one or two. The ordained mis- 
sionary often finds himself obliged to unite the 
adaptability of a jack-of-all-trades to the functions 
of an archbishop. 

The ordinary work of a foreign missionary is 
along five main lines. Although they are closely 
interrelated, it will be helpful in making a clear pic- 
ture of the missionary task to treat them separately. 

Evangelistic work. The gospel is preeminently 
an evangel, a proclamation of good tidings. An 
unqualified statement that one department of mis- 
sionary activity is evangelistic, would give a wrong 
impression, however, for all forms of work are 
evangelistic in spirit and in aim. But a vital part 
of the work is distinctively evangelistic. Its magni- 
tude may be inferred from the fact that there are 
now no less than 25,514 organized churches and 
a large number of unorganized congregations, with 
2 >354>86o adult communicants; while the number 



98 THE WHY AND HOW OF FOREIGN MISSIONS 

of enrolled children and persons under Christian in- 
struction is 2,662,146. 

The direct preaching of the gospel naturally has 
a prominent place. There is an increasing number 
of churches in which there are stated sermons; but 
the main evangelistic work is done in less preten- 
tious, though not less effective ways. The message 
is proclaimed in humble street chapels, in crowded 
bazaars, in secluded zenanas, from house to house, 
and on long country tours. The itinerations often 
occupy several months and include the visitation of 
hundreds of villages. All sorts of conveyances are 
used, — elephants, cameTs, horses, mules, donkeys, 
canoes, launches, schooners, houseboats, wheelbar- 
rows, jinrikishas, bandy-carts, bicycles, and railroad 
trains, and an increasing number of automobiles and 
motor-cycles. All these serve the missionary's pur- 
pose as occasion offers, and not infrequently he 
travels on foot. 

There are no bounds to the zeal of the itinerant 
missionary. A toilsome journey on elephants 
through the jungles of Laos brought a party, of 
which I was one, to Saturday night with the weary 
ejaculation: u Now we can have a day of rest!' 1 
The next morning we visitors slept late; but the mis- 
sionaries did not, for they spent an hour before 
breakfast in a neighboring village, distributing tracts 
and inviting the people to come to a service at our 
camp at ten o'clock. It was an impressive service 
— under a spreading bo tree, with the mighty forest 



THE MISSIONARY AT WORK 99 

about us, monkeys curiously peering through the 
tangled vines, the huge elephants browsing on the 
bamboo tips behind us, and the wondering people 
sitting on the ground, while one of the missionaries 
told the deathless story of redeeming love. The 
other missionary, Dr. Daniel McGilvary, was not 
present. Seventy-four years old though he was, he 
had walked three miles under a scorching sun to 
another village, and was preaching there. And w 7 e 
said: " If that is the way the missionaries rest, what 
do they do when they work? " 

This is but a sample of the evangelistic fidelity 
that we saw everywhere. Missionaries whose im- 
mediate assignments are to medical or educational 
work often assist in country touring. A physician 
in Africa never did a better thing for Christ than on 
a trip of which he wrote : 

" I returned last week from a tour of seventeen 
days through the Utum country. The wet season 
was at its worst. All the rivers were flooded and 
the swamps were terrible to get through. Almost 
every day I waded in water waist deep, sometimes 
for hours at a time. Much of my trip was through 
a country from which we had never been able to 
get any schoolboys, as the people were afraid to let 
them go so far from home and with white men of 
whom they knew but little. I went with the deter- 
mination not only to preach the gospel, but to bring 
back with me some boys for our school. I knew if 
I could get a few for a start, we would get plenty 



ioo THE WHY AND HOW OF FOREIGN MISSIONS 

in years to come. The Lord answered my prayers, 
and when we marched back through streams and 
forests, about seventy prospective pupils went with 
me. That long line of children, so ignorant and 
needy, some footsore and weary, marching away 
from their homes of darkness and sin towards the 
light of the dear Saviour who died for them, was 
a sight which would move a heart of stone. Some- 
times a mother in parting from her child would fol- 
low along for miles and then take me by the hands, 
and with tears rolling down her cheeks, say; ' Doc- 
tor, that is my only child, you will take good care 
of him, won't you?' Human nature is very much 
the same here as elsewhere." 

Educational work. It is this phase of the mis- 
sionary enterprise which probably makes the first 
impression upon the traveler. This effect is pro- 
duced partly because educational work is repre- 
sented by institutions that are conspicuous, partly 
because children are much in evidence everywhere. 
They are sweet-faced, bright-eyed children, to whom 
one is instinctively drawn. One hears the patter of 
their wooden sandals in the streets of Japan. He 
sees their quaintly grave faces in the ricefields of 
China. He never wearies of watching their brown, 
chubby little bodies on the river banks of Siam. His 
heart aches as he sees their emaciated limbs and 
wan looks in India. Everywhere their features are 
so expressive that he feels that they ought to have 
a better chance in life and that he ought to help 



THE MISSIONARY AT WORK 101* 

them to get it, while new meaning irradiates the 
words, " It is not the will of your Father . . . 
that one of these little ones should perish." 

In this spirit, one of the first and most loving 
duties of the missionary is to gather these children 
into schools and to teach them for this life and the 
life to come. Day-schools of primary grade are, of 
course, the most numerous, and they reach myriads 
of little ones. Above them are the boarding-schools, 
where children are under the more continuous care 
of the missionary. If he be a benefactor of the race 
who makes two blades of grass grow where one 
grew before, what shall be said of the missionary 
who takes a half-naked urchin out of the squalor 
of a mud hut, where both sexes and all ages herd 
like pigs, teaches him to bathe himself, to respect 
woman, to tell the truth, to earn an honest living, 
and to serve God. It means even more for the girls 
than for the boys, for heathenism, which venerates 
animals, despises women. In sacred Benares, 
India, I saw a man make reverent way for a cow, 
and a little farther on roughly push a woman out 
of his path. I saw monkeys in the protected luxury 
of a temple, while at its gates starving girls begged 
for bread. Is there any work more Christlike than 
the gathering of these neglected ones into clean dor- 
mitories and showing them the meaning of virtue, 
of industry, and of that which does not exist 
throughout all the pagan world, except where the 
gospel has made it, a pure, sweet, Christian home? 



102 THE WHY AND HOW OF FOREIGN MISSIONS 

Higher schools. Colleges and the various pro- 
fessional and technical schools take the more prom- 
ising graduates of the high schools and train them 
for special work among their own people. The 
equipment of these institutions is often humble, com- 
pared with the magnificent buildings of many of our 
home colleges; but we may safely challenge Europe 
and America to show colleges that have achieved 
more solid results with such limited resources. 
Many a mission college turns out well-trained men 
on an income that would hardly keep a home uni- 
versity in lights and fuel. 

These schools and colleges are exerting an enor- 
mous influence. They lead many students to Christ. 
They undermine the superstitions and dispel the 
prejudices of many who are not immediately con- 
verted. They give the missionary access to new 
villages and zenanas and familiarize the non-Chris- 
tian mind with Christian conceptions. They often 
form the most effective means of reaching the upper 
classes. Scores of mission schools are educating the 
sons and daughters of officials, noblemen, and, in 
some countries, of princes. 

An interesting illustration of the opportunities 
thus created occurred in Bangkok, Siam. A noble- 
man, whom the missionary had vainly tried to lead 
to Christ, sent his only son to the mission school. 
A year or two later, in an epidemic of cholera, the 
boy died. The missionary gently told the stricken 
parents of the Good Shepherd, who sometimes took 



THE MISSIONARY AT WORK 103 

a lamb in his arms to induce the sheep to follow 
him. Deeply moved, the father sketched an outline 
of the incident and bade an artist paint it. He 
showed us the picture : a shepherd, with a kindly 
face, carrying a lamb in his bosom, while afar off 
two sheep, which had been walking away, were turn- 
ing with wistful eyes to follow their loved one. 
" Now," said the nobleman, " I want to give 10,000 
ticals to build a church in recognition of God's deal- 
ings with me through my boy." And we said: It 
is as true now as of old that "a little child shall 
lead them." 

The opening of Asia to the influences of the 
modern world and the development of the native 
churches give special emphasis to the question of 
higher education. The need is emphasized by the 
fact that leading Asiatic nations are beginning to 
appreciate the importance of Western learning and 
are establishing colleges of their own. Hindu, 
Buddhist, and Moslem institutions will not, of 
course, train men for Christian leadership. The 
churches must provide the needed facilities or see 
their young men go to schools dominated by anti- 
christian influences. That the boards and the mis- 
sions realize this is seen in the fact that there are 
now on the foreign field no less than 39,603 mission 
schools, of which more than 2,800 are of the higher 
grades, the total number of pupils being 1,959,815. 

Schools of almost every type are found in the list 
of mission institutions. They are not limited to the 



104 THE WHY AND HOW OF FOREIGN MISSIONS 

teaching of the usual literary and scientific subjects, 
but include training and normal schools, seminaries, 
medical colleges, industrial schools teaching a wide 
range of crafts, and agricultural schools. 

The competition of the always irreligious, and 
sometimes antichristian, government schools and col- 
leges makes it necessary to give a larger staff and a 
more adequate equivalent to the mission institutions. 
The boards are endeavoring to do this. Already the 
mission schools and colleges in some fields are dis- 
tinctly superior to the government schools in the 
graded educational work, but their further develop- 
ment is imperative if Christian education is to retain 
its leadership. 

Literary work. Protestantism believes that a 
knowledge of the Word of God is indispensable to 
intelligent and permanent faith. Therefore one of 
the duties of the missionary is to translate the Bible 
into the vernacular. We often hear that the Bible 
is now accessible to practically all the nations of the 
earth. It is true, and the missionary is the one who 
has made it so. 

The Bible societies give invaluable cooperation 
in this department of mission work, paying the cost 
of printing the Scriptures, and, through their agents 
and colporteurs, aiding greatly in distributing them. 
These societies should therefore be considered an 
integral and a very important part of this large 
development of missionary effort. 

The printed Bible goes where the living voice 



THE MISSIONARY AT WORK 105 

cannot be heard. It brings its truths to men in the 
quiet hour. The force of its message is never les- 
sened by controversy or perverted by error. Within 
a century, about 540,000,000 copies of the Bible 
and portions of it have been printed in 400 different 
languages. If every missionary were to be banished, 
God's Word would remain in Asia, a mighty and 
indestructible power, operating as silently as the sun- 
shine, but containing within itself the stupendous 
potency of a world's regeneration. Today, the Per- 
sian and the Hottentot, the Korean and the Siamese 
are reading in their own tongues that " He is able 
to save them to the uttermost that come unto God 
by him"; and we know that God's Word shall not 
return unto him void. 

Publishing has to follow preparation. Many 
lands had no printing-presses when the missionary 
arrived, so he had to create and operate them. He 
was among the first to see the providential signifi- 
cance of movable type and the application of steam 
to the printing-press. Today, two hundred presses 
are conducted by the Protestant mission boards in 
various parts of the world, and they issue annually 
several hundred millions of pages of Christian 
literature and the Word of God. The missioit 
presses in Shanghai alone are exerting an enormous 
influence on the thought of one third of the human 
race, one of them printing about 100,000,000 pages 
a year. 

Bible translation, however, is not all of this work. 



io6 THE WHY AND HOW OF FOREIGN MISSIONS 

Many books and tracts must be prepared. Most 
of the literature of the non-Christian world is un- 
clean. There are, indeed, many excellent writings 
in the sacred books of Hinduism, Buddhism, and 
Confucianism; but they are merely ethical and are 
intermingled with a vast mass of error, puerility, 
and superstition. The books in common circulation 
are usually saturated with heathenism, if not actual 
immorality. The missionary, therefore, must create 
a Christian literature. This involves both transla- 
tion and original composition. The peoples of Asia 
are not so much accustomed to public discourse as 
Western races. The priests of the native religions 
seldom or never preach, and it is much more dif- 
ficult to influence people in that way than it is in 
England and America. The Chinese, in particular, 
are preeminently a people of books. Buddhism 
converted them, not by preaching, but by literature. 
The essay, the pamphlet, the placard, and more re- 
cently the newspaper, are the common means of dis- 
seminating ideas. Christianity must make a larger 
use of this method if it is to supersede Buddhism 
and Confucianism. 

The circulation of Christian literature is also an 
essential part of missionary work among Moslems. 
The mission press in Beirut, Syria, is probably doing 
as much as all other agencies combined to influence 
the Mohammedan world; for there the Bible is 
printed in the language that is spoken by two hun- 
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THE MISSIONARY AT WORK 107 

books and tracts go forth from the unpretentious 
building, which are read not only in Syria and 
Palestine, but in Asia Minor, Arabia, Egypt, Tunis, 
Algeria, Morocco, India, and among the Arabic- 
speaking colonies of North and South America. 

Medical work. Christ himself set the example 
by ministering to the sick. Indeed, he cited among 
the proofs of his Messiahship that " the blind re- 
ceive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are 
cleansed, and the deaf hear." Twenty-four of his 
thirty-six recorded miracles were of physical heal- 
ing, and there must have been scores of others, for 
we read that " all they that had any sick . . . 
brought them unto him: and he laid his hands on 
every one of them, and healed them." So medical 
w r ork is an essential part of our Christian service in 
heathen lands. We cannot " pass by on the other 
side " those countless sufferers or shut our ears to 
their cries of agony. 

Non-Christian lands are lands of pain. All the 
diseases and injuries common in America, and others 
far more dreadful, are intensified by ignorance, filth, 
and superstition. An Oriental tour fills the minds 
with ghastly memories of sightless eyeballs, scrofu- 
lous limbs, and festering ulcers. If our child is 
ill, a physician's understanding of the case and its 
remedy, the sympathy of friends, and the sweet com- 
forts of the gospel, make the sick chamber a place 
of peace and probably recovery. But in most non- 
Christian lands, illness is believed to be caused by 



108 THE WHY AND HOW OF FOREIGN MISSIONS 

a demon that has entered the body, and the treat- 
ment is an effort to expel it. Drums are beaten 
or horns blown beside the sufferer, in the hope that 
they will frighten away the demon. Hot fires are 
built to scorch it out. Sometimes even worse meth- 
ods are employed. 

" What are those scars which so thickly dot the 
body?" we asked Dr. Neal, in China, as he exam- 
ined a wan, pitiful little girl who had been brought 
in. " Places where hot needles have been thrust in 
to kill the spirit which is believed to have caused 
the pain," was the startling reply. 

" What a horrible foot!" we ejaculated, as we 
looked with Dr. Avison in Korea on a poor fellow 
who had hobbled into our room. A fall had made 
a bruise. A native doctor had told him that a 
demon had taken possession of it and that he should 
smear it with oil and set it on fire. Dirt and flies 
had aggravated the resultant sore, till the whole foot 
was literally rotting away. 

In the Syrian city of Hums we saw the sick flock 
to the medical missionary as of old they flocked to 
Christ, and he gave such relief to scores of sufferers, 
that men who would have stoned a preacher, rev- 
erently listened to the physician while he talked to 
them of Christ. 

The day we entered Allahabad, India, 170 people 
died of bubonic plague. Corpses were hourly car- 
ried through the streets. Shops were closed. The 
authorities, finding that preventive measures pro- 



THE MISSIONARY AT WORK 109 

voiced dangerous riots, helplessly allowed the pesti- 
lence to run unchecked. Half the population had 
fled; but the medical missionary stood heroically at 
her post, freely going among the sick and dying, 
responding both day and night to every appeal for 
help, giving what aid was possible in that swiftly 
fatal scourge, and telling all of the healing of the 
soul in Christ. 

Few men anywhere will touch a leper, but the 
medical missionaries lovingly seek them in scores 
of places, mitigating the horrors of a disease for 
which, until recently, no help has been possible. 
Today, however, medical missionaries are on the 
alert to apply the results of the latest research 
which, for the first time in human history, gives a 
reasonable hope that leprosy may be cured, at least 
in its early stage. 

There are being maintained on the foreign field 
by the Protestant boards 692 hospitals and 1,218 
dispensaries. They treat yearly about 3,100,000 
patients. No other phase of mission work has done 
more to soften hearts and to open doors, no other 
has been more fruitful in spiritual results. Standing 
in one of those humble buildings and watching the 
tender ministries to suffering, one feels sure that 
God loves the place, and he rejoices that in Asia 
as well as in America, men can say: 

" The healing of the seamless dress 
Is by our bed of pain; 
We touch him in life's throng and press, 
And we are whole again." 



no THE WHY AND HOW OF FOREIGN MISSIONS 

The missionary in social service. The social 
ministry in its various phases has become a recog- 
nized and an important part of modern missionary 
work. Some critics indeed urge that the missionary 
should not concern himself at all with social move- 
ments, his efforts being to instil in the minds of men 
the formative principles of the Christian religion 
and then leave these to work their legitimate results 
through saved men. Robert N. Cust, an acknowl- 
edged English authority of a former generation, 
wrote: " The duty of the missionary is to preach 
the gospel, and nothing else, except what helps 
preaching the gospel. His converts and his church 
may be poor and uncivilized; that is not his affair; 
the poor have the gospel preached to them; that 
is his sole duty." 

The application of the gospel to social conditions 
was not regarded until recently as an essential part 
of the missionary enterprise but was largely left to 
individuals. The common idea held was that this 
world was so doomed anyway that the only thing 
to be done was to pluck as many brands as possible 
from the burning before it was too late. When a 
certain missionary on furlough was asked, in a con- 
ference with students, what his mission was doing 
in the way of social service, he replied, " Nothing; 
we are too busy preaching the gospel." This answer 
was not a fair characterization of the work of his 
mission, but it illustrates the attitude of mind which 
long prevailed. 



THE MISSIONARY AT WORK in 

The missionaries who held this view merely re- 
flected the attitude of their home churches. Chris- 
tians have founded and are supporting nine tenths 
of the charitable work of our American communities 
and have been the chief factors in promoting legis- 
lation for municipal, county, and state institutions 
for the sick, the poor, and the defective classes. But 
efforts of this kind were not considered the duty of 
the churches themselves, and when time and money 
were thus " diverted " from " church work," the 
action was sometimes resented. The common idea 
was expressed in the hymn which congregations 
used to sing with self-satisfied fervor: 

" Pull for the shore, sailor, 
Pull for the shore; 
Leave the poor old stranded wreck, 
And pull for the shore." 

Ministers were supposed to devote themselves 
exclusively to sermons, prayer-meetings, and pas- 
toral work, and their themes were to be " the 
gospel " only, in alleged imitation of St. Paul who 
was determined not to " know anything . . . save 
Jesus Christ and him crucified." It did not occur 
to them that St. Paul's epistles afford abundant evi- 
dence that he interpreted Jesus Christ in terms of 
the whole duty and relationship of man, making him 
the regulative principle of all human life. Indeed, 
a veteran clergyman, after hearing that I had 
preached a sermon on the pitiable lot of women and 
children in sweat-shops, piously said that he thanked 



ii2 THE WHY AND HOW OF FOREIGN MISSIONS ' 

God that in a ministry of fifty years he had never 
preached on such a subject, but that he had confined 
himself to the gospel. 

Similar convictions built up churches which had 
eloquent preaching and inspiring music paid for by 
pewholders some of whom, as investigations have 
shown, spent their week-days as profiteers, political 
corruptionists, betrayers of trust funds, and child- 
labor employers. When an indignant public senti- 
ment began to castigate them, they lifted their hands 
in innocent surprise that anyone should imagine that 
they had been doing wrong. Religion was conceived 
as a man's private affair and as having no necessary 
relation to business or politics. The European war 
gave frightful illustration of the inadequacy of such 
an interpretation of Christianity. 

Example of Christ and the apostles. We should 
not, however, go to the other extreme by insisting 
that the preeminent duty of the Church is not to 
preach the gospel but to effect social reforms. This 
would be a false alternative. No such distinction 
is permissible between the gospel and social service 
rightly understood. Christ and his apostles made 
the preaching of the gospel the first thing, and they 
did not organize societies for the prevention of 
crime or found orphanages and insane asylums. On 
the other hand, the age in which Christ lived and 
the time and circumstance of his brief ministry did 
not make it practicable for him to do many things 
which he might have done in other circumstances and 



THE MISSIONARY AT WORK 113 

which he expects his followers to do. If he and his 
apostles did not undertake special lines of social 
service, neither did they organize Sunday-schools, 
women's societies, young people's societies, mission 
bands, Young Men's Christian Associations, and 
other agencies which are now deemed indispensable 
parts of Christian activity. But Christ did heal the 
sick on a large scale. He opened the eyes of the 
blind, he made the deaf to hear, the dumb to speak, 
and the lame to walk, he restored reason to the 
insane, and he encouraged special ministries to the 
poor. The apostles organized a board of deacons 
to relieve destitute widows. In doing these things 
today, we are but following these examples. 

The spirit of Christ calls us to do something 
more in the direction of social service than the 
Church has yet done either at home or abroad. No 
such highly developed creeds and church organiza- 
tions as we have today were formulated by our 
Lord or by St. Paul; but we are not going to burn 
our creeds or disband our churches on that account. 
I believe, with all my heart, that the supreme duty 
of the missionary enterprise is to make Jesus Christ 
intelligently known as a personal Saviour, to induce 
men to accept him as such, and to aid them in estab- 
lishing a self-propagating, self-supporting, and self- 
governing Church. Evangelistic work, therefore, 
should be first in importance always and every- 
where. 

But when the gospel is introduced among a non- 



ii 4 THE WHY AND HOW OF FOREIGN MISSIONS 

Christian people, we should not leave converts to 
ascertain and work out unaided the meaning of that 
gospel in human society. It has taken Western 
Christians many centuries to learn this lesson. Why 
should we leave Asiatics and Africans to stumble 
along for the same number of centuries? It is a 
reproach to the churches of America and Europe 
that they have so largely left the outworking of the 
gospel in society to independent and voluntary 
organizations. 

An essential part of the gospel. Of what avail 
to tell a young Christian that he should abstain from 
liquor, when on every hand liquor traffickers incite 
him to drink; to teach a girl that she should be pure 
in a land whose social customs openly recognize im- 
purity; to insist that a boy should be honest when 
dishonesty is woven into the very warp and woof 
of the family and commercial life of which he is a 
part! John E. Clough, missionary to the Telugus, 
found that he could make no headway among the 
filthy, carrion-eating Pariahs of his district unless he 
changed the whole structure of their village life. 
A. G. Fraser of Kandy, Ceylon, and Mr. Sam Hig- 
ginbottom of Allahabad soon came to the conclusion 
that to teach village boys arithmetic and Bible his- 
tory, and then send them out with no training that 
would enable them to earn a decent living, was to 
pour water through a sieve. We are working at 
tremendous disadvantage in trying to save indi- 
viduals if we ignore the social conditions which in- 



THE MISSIONARY AT WORK 115 

fluence them. It is important to pull men out of the 
mire; but the proportion of rescued men will be 
small if we do not lessen the mire into which others 
are constantly falling. 

Much Christian work in the past has been done 
on the principle of the Chinese cart. There are no 
roads in China, except ancient ruts that are filled 
with dust in the dry season and with mud and water 
in the wet season. Instead of improving the roads, 
the Chinese tried to make an indestructible spring- 
less cart. They made one that no traveler can use 
without agony and temptation to strong language 
as it jumps and jolts along; but modern China is 
awakening to the fact that it pays to spend money 
on roads as well as on carts. 

The gospel of Christ is as truly presented in the 
schools for the blind and for the deaf and dumb, 
the asylums and orphanages and homes for child 
widows, as it is in what we call evangelistic w r ork. 
Are they not evangelistic too? Did not Livingstone 
preach an essential part of the gospel when he pro- 
claimed to Western nations the horrors of African 
slavery as the open sore of the world? Did not 
missionaries in India serve the cause of Christ when 
they protested against the immolation of wives on 
the funeral pyres of their husbands; the missionaries 
in Siam, when they persuaded the king to issue a 
decree against the national vice of gambling; and 
the missionaries in China, when they inaugurated 
the crusade against opium? 



n6 THE WHY AND HOW OF FOREIGN MISSIONS 

I sympathize with the missionary who insists that 
he cannot be indifferent to the practical application 
of the gospel to human society; that when orphans 
in India are starving, his efforts should include 
bread as well as exhortations; that when opium- 
smoking in China is an effectual bar to the entrance 
of the gospel, the missionary should try to remove 
that bar; and that where the blind, the insane, the 
deaf and dumb are entirely neglected, the missionary 
who passes " by on the other side " exposes himself 
to the indignant censure which Christ visited upon 
the heartless priest and Levite. 

Saving men for time and for eternity. The 
gospel was intended to save men both for this life 
and for the life to come, and when a missionary 
goes among people who are wholly ignorant of the 
bearings of the gospel upon human life, it is surely 
within his province to show them how to live in time 
as well as eternity. This, as a matter of fact, is 
what the missionaries are doing. Missionaries 
have done more than all others combined to lessen 
the evils of slavery, infanticide, intemperance, 
concubinage, opium-smoking, the degradation of 
woman, and kindred evils. Indeed, a considerable 
part of the modern missionary enterprise might be 
called Christian social settlement w r ork on a large 
scale. It is one of the glories of the foreign mis- 
sionary enterprise that, along with its numerous 
churches and its expanding evangelistic work and as 
an essential part of its interpretation of Christ to 



THE MISSIONARY AT WORK 117 

the non-Christian world, it includes not only 1,910 
hospitals and dispensaries but 21 institutions for the 
blind and for deaf-mutes, 90 leper hospitals and 
asylums, 20 homes for untainted children of lepers, 
a number of homes for women, and a variety of 
industrial and agricultural schools. 

These institutions, in spite of the fact that the 
mission boards have been able to give them only 
meager equipment, are conducted by carefully se- 
lected missionaries who have received technical 
training for their special work. It would not be 
practicable for mission boards toestablish the neces- 
sary institutions all over the non-Christian world, 
or even all that are needed in any one country. But 
they are equipping a limited number as object-lessons 
to show what the Christ spirit involves. 

As for removing prejudices, winning good-will, 
and creating opportunities for making Christ known 
in places which are ordinarily difficult of access, what 
could be more effective than loving ministries to the 
suffering? A native of Yamada lost both legs in 
the war with Russia. Mr. and Mrs. W. F. 
Hereford thought that the poor cripple would have 
a better chance to earn a living if he had a rolling 
chair. Mrs. Hereford raised some money by selling 
curios and embroideries; she also gave a stereoptican 
lecture. These proceeds and a few small local 
gifts made up the sum required to buy the chair 
in America and to pay the freight. All that was now 
needed was the duty of 30 yen ($15). Mr. Here- 



n8 THE WHY AND HOW OF FOREIGN 81 MISSIONS 

ford suggested to a Japanese official that, as the 
man had given his legs for his country, the country 
ought to give the duty on the chair. The official 
laughed at him and said that no one but a foreigner 
would ever think of such a thing. The missionary 
argued the question, and the official finally gave his 
consent. The chair was delivered to the municipal 
building. The Japanese pastor carried the man 
there on his back, and the cripple had his first ride 
in the presence of all the officials. All this took time 
and trouble, but both were unselfishly given to help 
an afflicted man who had never been inside of a 
Christian church. The result was a profound im- 
pression upon the whole city. 

Another illustration occurred in Shanghai, where 
there are about 20,000 Chinese prostitutes. Dis- 
tressed by their pitiful lot, Mrs. George F. Fitch 
opened a rescue home to which the slave girls could 
flee for refuge. The home has attracted wide at- 
tention and it witnesses powerfully for Christ. A 
high official visited it one day with his wife, and as 
he noted the sweet ministries to the fallen, he mar- 
veled and said to his wife: " Nobody but Jesus 
people would do this." That sentence vividly ex- 
presses the world-wide difference between the Chris- 
tian and the non-Christian. It is at once an indict- 
ment of Confucianism and a justification of missions. 
Nobody but " Jesus people " are doing these things. 

An all-round gospel. The gospel means some- 
thing more than physical aid for the afflicted, some- 



THE MISSIONARY AT WORK 



119 



thing more than changing man's external conditions 
so that he will be a more decent and attractive ani- 
mal. But the Christian life also means something 
more than preaching and praying. The Epistle of 
James has some caustic words on this subject. We 
must enunciate and explain the teachings of Christ, 
but we must do more — we must show an ignorant 
people what these teachings mean in daily life. 

The Old Testament prophets and the New Testa- 
ment apostles dealt not only with doctrines but with 
the ills and weaknesses and wrongs of human society 
— the sick, the blind, the deaf, the demoniac, im- 
purity, intemperance, shiftlessness, poverty, crime, 
oppressions by the rich and powerful, and the 
wrongs and sufferings of the poor. When Christ 
preached in Nazareth, he " found the place where 
it was written, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, 
because he anointed me to preach good tidings to 
the poor: he hath sent me to proclaim release to the 
captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set 
at liberty them that are bruised, to proclaim the ac- 
ceptable year of the Lord." He held up the Good 
Samaritan as a worthy example, and he condemned 
the priest and the Levite who passed by without giv- 
ing aid to a suffering man. He made the spirit 
of helpfulness for human need one of the proofs 
of his Messiahship, for when the discouraged John 
the Baptist sent his disciples to ask: " Art thou he 
that cometh, or look we for another? And Jesus 
answered and said unto them, Go and tell John the 



120 THE WHY AND HOW OF FOREIGN MISSIONS 

things which ye hear and see; the blind receive their 
sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, 
and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and 
the poor have good tidings preached to them." 
And in his solemn description of the rewards and 
punishments to be announced when he " shall come 
in his glory," he declared that the inheritance 
should be given to those who had ministered to their 
hungry, thirsty, lonely, sick, and imprisoned fellow- 
men, and that those who had failed to do this should 
be banished from his presence forever. 

The foreign missionary therefore declares and 
exemplifies the whole gospel as Jesus did. Varying 
conditions influence the form of work that is given 
prominence in a particular field. The missionary 
usually began with evangelistic work, freely using 
with it tracts and Bible portions, and developing 
schools and hospitals as auxiliaries as rapidly as pos- 
sible. In fields where conditions rendered this method 
impracticable, the missionary began with medical or 
educational work. However fiercely the people 
might oppose public preaching, they might be will- 
ing to send their children to a school and their sick 
to a hospital. The missionary made no compromise, 
for he caused it to be understood that pupils and 
patients would hear of Christ. But desire for edu- 
cation or healing was so strong that in many lands 
medical or educational work gained a foothold for 
Christ. Prejudices were softened, sympathies won, 
and avenues of approach opened to relatives and 



THE MISSIONARY AT WORK 121 

friends. Personal work with individuals gradually 
created conditions which rendered possible the as- 
sembling of little groups of people in private houses 
for religious instruction; and at last the time came 
when the missionary could erect a chapel and hold 
public services. 

References for Further Reading 

The Missionary at Work 

The Democratic Movement in Asia, Dennett (2), IV. 
The Social Aspects of Foreign Missions, Faunce (20), VII. 
The Modern Missionary Challenge, Jones (15), VI. 

Evangelistic Work 

The Missionary Enterprise, Bliss (n), X. 

Rising Churches in Non-Christian Lands, Brown (12), II. 

Educational Work 

The Gospel and the New World, Speer (8), VIII. 
The Democratic Movement in Asia, Dennett (2), V. 

Medical Work 

Medical Missions, Lambuth (24). 

The Democratic Movement in Asia, Dennett (2), VI. 

Translation and Preparation of Christian Literature 

The Bible and Missions, Montgomery (27), Part II. 

The Missionary Outlook in the Light of the War (9), XVIII. 

Christian Missions and Social Reconstruction 

The Social Aspects of Foreign Missions, Faunce (20) IV, V. 
Sociological Progress in Mission Lands, Capen (19). 
Social Problems and the East, Lenwood (21). 
The Democratic Movement in Asia, Dennett (2), VIII. 



VI 
THE NATIVE CHURCH 

The growth of the Church abroad. The scenes 
so graphically described in the New Testament are 
being enacted on a wider scale throughout the mis- 
sion field of the twentieth century. Humble but 
earnest men and women are hearing the good tidings 
of great joy which shall be to all the people. Nu- 
merous churches have been developed. The number 
of adult communicants is rapidly approaching three 
millions in addition to an approximately equal num- 
ber that have been enrolled as persons to receive 
Christian instruction. Even this step often involves 
sacrifice and hardship. It usually signifies that one 
has separated himself from the religion of his coun- 
try. Though not yet ready to be baptized, he at- 
tends the church and is willing to be known by his 
neighbors as a Christian. 

This already considerable native Church is grow- 
ing at the rate of nearly 150,000 communicants a 
year. Christians of the second and third generation 
represent increasing stability. Capable leaders are 
appearing, and others are being trained in mission 
schools. The development of such a Church nat- 
urally brings into prominence certain questions of 

123 



THE NATIVE CHURCH 123 

mission policy. We have already seen that the aim 
of the missionary enterprise includes the develop- 
ment of an indigenous Church. To this end, the 
Church must be trained to self-propagation, self- 
support, self-government, and social service. The 
last, social service, has been sufficiently discussed for 
our present purpose in the preceding chapter. 

Self-propagation. Self-propagation is insisted 
upon as soon as converts appear. They are taught 
from the beginning that the missionary motive 
should become operative within them, and that they 
are under the same obligation as Christians in Eu- 
rope and America to give the knowledge of Christ 
to others. Early effort is made to select the con- 
verts who should be trained for the ministry. This 
was the way Christ worked. He preached whenever 
he had opportunity, but one of his chief efforts was 
to train disciples to perpetuate and extend the work 
after his departure. Paul also worked in this way. 
He went to a city, preached the gospel, gathered a 
band of disciples, organized them into a church, re- 
mained long enough to get them fairly started, and 
then went elsewhere. 

The modern missionary will have to remain a 
good deal longer than Paul did, for he does not 
find such prepared conditions as the great apostle 
found in the Jews of the dispersion. A land may 
be nominally evangelized in a generation, but the 
Christianizing of it may be the toilsome process of 
centuries. Moreover, when the object has been 



124 THE WHY AND HOW OF FOREIGN MISSIONS 

attained in one country, the responsibility of the 
home Church will not cease, but simply be trans- 
ferred to other populations. It is a long campaign 
upon which we have entered, but we should keep 
our purpose clearly in mind. 

The development of the Church is necessary not 
only for the success and permanence of the work, 
but from the point of view of available men and 
money. It is impossible for the churches of Europe 
and America to send out and maintain enough mis- 
sionaries to preach the gospel effectively to all of 
the thousand millions of the unevangelized world. 

Appeals to flood the foreign field with mission- 
aries ignore the part of the native Church in evan- 
gelization. They apparently assume that the native 
Christians have no responsibility for making Christ 
known to their countrymen or that they will not dis- 
charge it, and that the entire burden of evangeliz- 
ing rests so exclusively upon foreigners that the peo- 
ple will never hear the gospel unless great numbers 
of white men are sent to preach it. Such an assump- 
tion is fundamentally wrong. The native worker 
is better for direct evangelism anyway. He can live 
more economically than a foreigner, and he has a 
knowledge of native idioms, ways of thinking, and 
manners and customs that no foreigner can obtain. 
Moreover, there is no gulf of race between him and 
his countrymen. There is much about the Asiatic 
and the African that is inscrutable to the American 
and the European. The former, in particular, is 



THE NATIVE CHURCH 125 

likely to be secretive and to make his outward man- 
ner a mask behind which there may be thoughts 
wholly unsuspected to a foreigner. But the native 
helper is able to get behind that mask, and just be- 
cause he is a native, and probably one of superior 
force of character, the people are more influenced 
by him than by the missionary. 

The greater number of converts are now made 
by native evangelists. A missionary in Manchuria, 
in reporting 1,200 conversions, said that u the first 
principles of Christian instruction were implanted 
almost invariably by the natives," and that he could 
not " trace more than four and twenty who were 
directly the converts of the foreign missionaries." 
pthers at the conference declared that five hundred 
native evangelists would be a far greater power in 
China than five thousand foreigners. The chief 
work of direct evangelization in Korea is now being 
done by the Korean Christians themselves, and the 
result is an almost continuous ingathering. 

This does not minimize the need of reinforce- 
ments. The present force is far too small for ef- 
fective superintendence in many fields. Every board 
is calling for recruits. Almost all mission fields are 
J)adly undermanned, some of them distressingly so. 
The home Church should not relax its efforts to 
provide a more adequate supply of foreign workers ; 
but while it is doing this, the missions and boards 
should persistently endeavor to develop a native 
agency. 



126 THE WHY AND HOW OF FOREIGN MISSIONS 

Practical difficulties beset this problem. In hardly 
any other part of the mission work is there so much 
need of prudence. Hundreds of natives want em- 
ployment, but they are often unfit for it. Nor is 
every one who is willing to work without pay quali- 
fied for efficient service. These and other difficul- 
ties can be overcome, however. The more successful 
the work, the more essential it is to train the native 
ministry that is indispensable to conserve the evan- 
gelistic results already attained and which we hope 
to attain in yet larger measure. The work will not 
be self-supporting in any proper sense, but on the 
contrary will be ruinously expensive, if a large part 
of it must be done by foreign missionaries instead 
of by a native ministry supported by the people. 

Self-support. The native Church should be led 
to self-support as well as self-propagation. Here, 
also, the difficulties are formidable. The mis- 
sionary in Asia and Africa represents not only a 
superior, but a more expensive type of civilization. 
His scale of living, while moderate from our point 
of view, appears to them princely. Centuries of 
abject poverty and of despotic government have 
predisposed most Orientals to accept with eagerness 
whatever is given them. Accustomed to living, or 
rather half starving, on an income of from thirty 
to one hundred dollars a year, the native regards 
the missionary on a salary of $1,500 as an indi- 
vidual of wealth and the representative of untold 
riches in the homeland. He is, therefore, tempted 



THE NATIVE CHURCH 127 

to go to him for the sake of the loaves and fishes, 
and this temptation is enormously strengthened if 
he gets the impression that the missionary may 
employ him as a helper, or that some individual or 
society in America may support him. 

The missionary, in turn, is tempted to the free use 
of money by the wretchedness of the .people and by 
the visible results which may be temporarily secured 
by a liberal financial policy. Would-be converts 
flock to him in such circumstances; many helpers 
can be hired to apparent advantage, and buildings 
can be cheaply rented and furnished. But if he 
yields to the temptation, " he puts himself and the 
young church in a false relation at the outset. It 
is better to teach the converts to make their own 
arrangements, the missionary guiding by advice 
from his larger experience of their probable require- 
ments, and only in the last resort giving pecuniary 
help." * 

This policy is not always agreeable to the native 
helper. As an employee of the mission, he had the 
power of that body behind him and was virtually 
independent of his people; now he is more subject 
to their caprice. His support, too, becomes more 
uncertain; for the natives are not such prompt pay- 
masters as mission treasurers, nor can they always 
pay adequate salaries. 

On this point we must be increasingly firm. Lead- 

1 Gibson, Mission Problems and Mission Methods in South China, 
page 193. 



128 THE WHY AND HOW OF FOREIGN MISSIONS 

ing an able-bodied man to Christ does not involve 
responsibility for his temporal support. He made 
his living before his conversion; why should he not 
do so after it? Persecution may hinder him for a 
time; but better far that he should suffer a little 
than that he should be pauperized at the outset. 
Christianity does not unnerve a man. It increases 
his ability to fight the battles of life. No native 
should be allowed to get the impression that if he 
becomes a Christian, he will be given a job and a 
salary, even though the job be so sacred a one as 
preaching the gospel. 

Our duty is to start Christianity in Asia, not to 
carry it; to give the gospel, to found its institutions, 
to aid them so far as necessary in their infancy, but 
to insist that as soon as practicable they shall stand 
upon their own feet. We must be patient and rea- 
sonable; for now as of old it is the common people 
who hear Christ gladly, and in non-Christian lands 
the common people are pitifully poor. We must 
not withdraw aid so rapidly as to injure the work. 
But the spirit of self-help is as vital to character 
abroad as it is at home. Strength comes with inde- 
pendence, and we must not devitalize the native 
Church by indiscriminate charity. 

There is of course a legitimate use of foreign 
money in the earlier stages of the work. Infancy 
must be helped. Boards should make such appro- 
priations as an equitable distribution of funds will 
permit for the employment of native workers; but 



THE NATIVE CHURCH 129 

the number of these should be limited to real needs; 
the salary should not be unwisely disproportionate 
to the plane on which their countrymen live; and 
they should be made to understand that this pecuni- 
ary arrangement is temporary. We must insist, line 
upon line and precept upon precept, that while the 
missionary, being a foreigner, will be maintained 
by the people of America, the native pastors must 
not look to the boards but to their own people for 
their permanent support. 

N We should resist the temptation to an artificial 
growth which the free use of money can beget. A 
church developed by foreign money is built on quick- 
sand. One self-reliant church is worth more to the 
cause of Christ than a dozen dependent ones. There 
must, of course, be due regard to local conditions. 
Neither the missions nor the boards should violently 
revolutionize in fields where the opposite policy has 
long been pursued. Self-support cannot be attained 
by immediately discharging all native helpers, or by 
so reducing the work that nothing will be left to 
support. Change must be gradual; but no land will 
be evangelized until it has a self-supporting native 
Church. Let us work and give and pray for this 
essential aim of missionary effort. 

Employment of Western-trained Orientals. In 
this connection, it may be well to state that friends 
in the homeland should observe greater caution in 
responding to the appeals of the Orientals who are 
flocking to England and America in increasing num- 



130 THE WHY AND HOW OF FOREIGN MISSIONS 

bers. We do not refer to those who have availed 
themselves of the facilities afforded by the mission 
schools and colleges in their native land and who 
have come here for postgraduate study with enough 
money and knowledge of English to enable them to 
do it to advantage. Many of these men should be 
warmly encouraged. But if financial assistance is 
needed, it should be given as tuition is given to stu- 
dents in our home colleges; nor should anyone im- 
agine that he is doing the missionary cause a service 
by financially aiding an Oriental to u return and 
preach the gospel to his own people." The opinion 
of boards and missionaries is emphatic, that, with 
rare exceptions, chiefly among the Chinese and Japa- 
nese, Orientals that have been trained abroad are 
not so helpful as many in America imagine. The 
difficulties involved are often independent of the 
question of personal character. Experience has 
shown that native converts can be most economically 
and effectively trained for Christian work in the 
institutions in the mission field which have' been 
founded at considerable expense chiefly for this pur- 
pose. A sojourn in America usually develops tastes 
which render an Asiatic discontented with the finan- 
cial support which the native Church or the board 
can give him, and make him so conceited and over- 
bearing in manner that he is likely to be heartily dis- 
liked by other native ministers. He thus becomes a 
source of trouble, rather than of help. 

The policy of encouraging these young men to 




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THE NATIVE CHURCH 131 

come to America without due regard to wise restric- 
tions thwarts plans for higher education on the 
fields, creates irritation among the whole force of 
native workers, stimulates a wordly ambition, cuts 
off patriotism and race sympathy, and really cripples 
the influence which it is supposed to increase. Not 
infrequently, too, it leads to imposition upon the 
home churches and to the diversion of funds to per- 
sonal use which are supposed to go for missionary 
objects. Many Orientals have made a good living 
in this way, and some have been able to buy prop- 
erty and to loan money on bond and mortgage. It 
is always wise to refer appeals for assistance to the 
board, which can ascertain better than anyone in the 
churches whether a given native can be employed to 
advantage. 

Self-government. The self-government of the 
native Church is an equally essential part of the 
missionary aim, though it may not be so quickly 
realized. Nevertheless, its ultimate attainment 
should shape our policy, and the native Church 
should be stimulated to self-support and self- 
propagation by being frequently reminded that both 
are indispensable prerequisites to independence. It 
is as idle in Asia as in America to imagine that men 
can live on the money of others without being de- 
pendent on them. 

As for the missionary, he should frankly say of 
the native Church what John the Baptist said of 
Christ, l< He must increase, but I must decrease." 



i 3 2 THE WHY AND HOW OF FOREIGN MISSIONS 

If there is ever to be a self-supporting, self-govern- 
ing, and self-propagating native Church, we must 
.anticipate the time when it will be in entire control. 
More and more definitely should missionary policy 
recognize the part that this growing Church ought 
to have in the work. In the past, the typical mis- 
sionary has been primarily an evangelist and super- 
intendent. He had to be, for his was often the only 
voice from whom the message could be heard. The 
mission has been paramount and has been expected 
to run everything. Whatever was wanted, the 
board was asked to supply. But a native Church 
has now been created, and from now on we must 
concede its due share of responsibility for making 
the gospel known and for directing the general work. 
Many things need to be done in non-Christian lands 
which it is not the function of the boards to do. 
The work of foreign missions will be done in China 
long before China is Christianized as far as 
America. We wish to make it possible for China 
to Christianize herself. Our business is to plant 
Christianity and help to get it started, and then 
educate it to take care of itself. 

It is true that, in some lands, the native Church 
is yet in its infancy, and that it should have aid and 
counsel; but we should hold resolutely in view the 
principle that the mission is a temporary and dimin- 
ishingly authoritative body, and that the native 
Church is a permanent and increasingly authorita- 
tive body. Even though the mission remains a cen- 



THE NATIVE CHURCH 133 

tury or more, as it must in some lands, this funda- 
mental distinction should not be overlooked. A 
policy which builds up a big, all-powerful and all- 
embracing foreign mission is radically unsound. We 
are not to be the spiritual rulers of the world. We 
are simply helpers and co-workers. We have passed 
the pioneer stage in most fields, the paternal stage 
in many fields, and we are now entering the fraternal 
stage, while in some fields we are already happily 
in it. 

A difficult transition. It takes a great deal of 
grace for the missionary, after having been the 
supreme authority for years, to accept a place 
subordinate to that of the natives whom he has 
trained. Missionaries in some fields already find 
themselves in this ^position, and they would hardly 
be human if they did not feel uncomfortable. The 
spirit of independence has become so intense in 
Japan that many of the native leaders would have 
the Church refuse to recognize a congregation or 
preacher that receives foreign aid. Such a spirit of 
self-sacrificing independence is far more hopeful 
than flabby and supine acquiescence in external 
leadership. We cannot, however, view some phases 
of the situation without anxiety, nor can we fail to 
discern how embarrassing the position of the mis- 
sionaries must be. 

The new consciousness of power is strongly in- 
fluencing this spirit. While some peoples are so 
lacking in independent vigor, or are so accustomed 



134 THE WHY AND HOW OF FOREIGN MISSIONS 

to be dominated by foreigners that they look up to 
the missionary as a superior being, others, notably 
the Japanese, Chinese, and East Indians, are of a 
more proud and virile type. The attitude of a 
convert toward a missionary is naturally influenced 
by this racial spirit. He is still an Oriental, and he 
shares, to some extent at least, the irritation of 
proud and ancient races as they see the white man 
everywhere striving for the ascendancy. The 
growth of the native Church in numbers and power 
has developed within it a strong nationalistic feel- 
ing, a conviction that the natives should be inde- 
pendent of foreign control in religion as in govern- 
ment. This is, of course, natural; but it involves 
some readjustments that are not easily made. 

Creed and polity of the native Church. What 
shall be the creed and polity of the native Church, 
and how far shall the missionary seek to shape them 
according to his own ideas? This is one of the re- 
lated problems that is becoming more and more 
difficult and delicate. The missionary from the 
West, trained in the tenets of a particular com- 
munion, born and bred to regard its creed and polity 
as the ones most in accord with the Word of God, 
is very likely to feel that they should be repeated 
on the foreign field. But we must more clearly 
recognize the right of each autonomous body of 
Christians to determine certain things for itself. We 
cannot, indeed, ignore the risks that are involved. 
There is sometimes ground for grave concern. Will 



THE NATIVE CHURCH 135 

the rising churches be soundly evangelical? God 
grant that they may be. But who is to be the judge 
of soundness? And with respect to undoubted doc- 
trines, to what extent should we impose our West- 
ern terminology upon Eastern churches ? We should 
be fair enough to remember that, in the course of 
nearly two thousand years, Christianity has taken on 
some of the characteristics of the white races. Per- 
haps this is one reason that Christianity is so often 
called by the Chinese " the foreigner's religion," a 
saying that indicates an entire misconception of its 
real character as a universal faith. 

Our creeds were formed in times of heated con- 
troversy, and their statements are massed in such a 
way as to be effective against the particular errors 
which were prevailing at those times. The result 
is that some of these creeds are impregnable forti- 
fications on sides from which no special attack is 
made in present-day Asia or Africa; while other 
positions, which are seriously menaced, are un- 
guarded. It is difficult for us to realize to what an 
extent our modes of theological thought and our 
forms of church polity have been influenced by our 
Western environment and the polemical struggles 
through which we have passed. The Oriental, not 
having passed through those particular controver- 
sies, knowing little and caring less about them, and 
having other controversies of his own, may not find 
our forms and methods exactly suited to him. It 
seems, therefore, not only just, but in the interest 



136 THE WHY AND HOW OF FOREIGN MISSIONS 

of evangelical truth, that the creed and polity of the 
native Church should be reasonably adapted to the 
exigencies of Asia, just as our creed and policy have 
been adapted to the exigencies of Europe and 
America. 

Why should not the Orientals who have accepted 
Christ have some liberty in developing for them- 
selves the methods and forms of statements which 
logically result from his teaching? Possibly some 
of our methods and statements are not so essential as 
we imagine. With all due insistence on the neces- 
sary elements of our faith, let us secure the native 
Church the same freedom that we have demanded 
for ourselves, and refrain from imposing upon other 
peoples those externals of Christianity that are dis- 
tinctively racial. 

When is the fit time? When, however, this po- 
sition is agreed to, the problem is by no means 
solved. There is practical unanimity among mis- 
sionaries that the native churches should be self- 
governing in time; but when is that time? There 
is room for wide difference of opinion as to whether 
a particular church has attained that maturity and 
soberness of judgment which fit it to manage pru- 
dently its own affairs and to shape its own theo- 
logical and ecclesiastical development. It is to be 
feared that in some places this independence is com- 
ing before the church is really fitted for it. And 
yet it is perhaps only right that, in respect of polity 
as of doctrine, we should consider whether we are 



THE NATIVE CHURCH 137 

to be the final judges of fitness. Our Anglo-Saxon 
ancestors would not permit other churches to de- 
cide when they were competent to govern them- 
selves. They felt that they were the proper persons 
to determine that. Nor did American Christians 
allow their mother churches in Europe to settle this 
question for them. Everywhere in the history of 
Protestantism, the principle has been recognized that 
any considerable body of believers has the right to 
decide for itself whether or not it should be de- 
pendent upon others. Shall we deny to the churches 
of Asia a principle that we cherish as fundamental? 
We must take into consideration the natural dis- 
position of man, from which even grace does not 
emancipate, to hold on to power as long as possible. 
It is notoriously difficult for a parent to realize that 
his son is growing up to manhood and has a right 
to settle some questions for himself. This is even 
more likely to be true of the home Church and the 
mission in dealing with native Christians of a dif- 
ferent race, who never will see some things as we 
see them, or be disposed to do some things as we 
have done them. It is difficult, in such circum- 
stances, for the missionary to pursue a wise course 
between the extremes of prematurely hastening and 
unduly retarding the independence of the native 
Church. We must balance our own judgment with 
the clearly expressed judgment of the native Chris- 
tians, and with our belief in the common guidance 
of the Spirit of God. 



i 3 8 THE WHY AND HOW OF FOREIGN MISSIONS 

The rather extraordinary objection has been 
urged that if the native Church becomes self-sup- 
porting and self-governing, the missionary and the 
home Church cannot control it. But why should they 
control it? Because the native brethren are not 
fitted for independence ? When will they be, if they 
are not given a chance to learn? Shall we wait until 
they equal the American and European Churches in 
stability? Will a century of dependence develop 
those qualities that wise self-government requires? 
Certain essential qualities of character can be devel- 
oped only by the exercise of autonomy. " It is lib- 
erty alone," said Gladstone, " which fits men for 
liberty." This proposition, like every other in 
politics, has its bounds, but it is far safer than the 
counter-doctrine, " wait till they are fit." The way 
to teach a child to walk alone is not to carry him 
until he becomes a ■ man, but to let him begin to 
toddle for himself while he is still young. He will 
learn faster by practise and tumbles than by lying 
in his mother's arms. 

What if the native churches do make some mis- 
takes? The Epistles of St. Paul show that some of 
the early churches fell into grievous errors; but he 
did not refuse them independence on that account. 
The churches of Europe and America have made 
colossal blunders, some of them resulting in dire 
calamities. The native churches can hardly do 
worse, and may do better. We can give them the 
benefit of our experience without keeping them per- 



THE NATIVE CHURCH 139 

petually in leading-strings. They need a certain 
amount of restraint and counsel; but that restraint 
and counsel are most effective when they are moral 
rather than authoritative. Better far a few falls 
and bumps than continual babyhood. 

Faith in our brethren and in God. Fear of the 
independence of the native Church may sometimes 
have justification, but too often it appears to be 
based upon four fundamental errors: first, that we 
need to be afraid of our avowed aim to establish a 
self-supporting, self-governing, and self-propagating 
Church; second, that the Church in Asia and Africa 
must be conformed to the Church in England or 
America; third, that we are responsible for all the 
future mistakes of a Church which we have once 
founded; fourth, that Christ who " purchased " the 
Church and who is its " Head " cannot be trusted 
to guide it. 

Let us have faith in our brethren and faith in 
God. When Christ said that he would be with his 
disciples alway, he meant his disciples in Asia and 
Africa as well as in Europe and America. The 
operations of the Holy Spirit are not confined to 
the white races. Are we to take no account of his 
guidance ? He is still in the world and will not for- 
sake his own. We should plant in non-Christian 
lands the fundamental principles of the gospel of 
Jesus Christ, and then give the native Church rea- 
sonable freedom to make some adaptations for 
itself. If, in the exercise of that freedom, it does 



i 4 o THE WHY AND HOW OF FOREIGN MISSIONS 

some things that we deprecate, let us not be fright- 
ened or imagine that our work has been in vain. 
Some of the acts which may impress us as wrong 
may not be so wrong in themselves as we imagine, 
but simply due to different ways of doing things. 

The Bible was written by Asiatics in an Asiatic 
language. Christ himself was an Asiatic. We of 
the West have perhaps only imperfectly understood 
that Asiatic Bible and Asiatic Christ, and it may be 
that by the guidance of God's Spirit within the ris- 
ing Church of Asia a more perfect interpretation 
of the gospel may be made known to the world. 

" Our little systems have their day; 
They have their day and cease to be; 
They are but broken lights of thet, 
And thou, O Lord, art more than they." 

Difficulties of the native Christian. I would 
gladly write more than the limits of this book will 
permit about the difficulties that beset the native 
Christian in the mission field. Even in America, 
where Christianity has a measure of popularity and 
temporal advantage, the Christian life is not easy. 
Some associations have to be changed. There are 
social customs which a Christian cannot countenance. 
Business and professional men are often tempted to 
resort to questionable methods to gain success, and 
if they refuse to yield to the temptation, they are 
sorely tried by the competition of less scrupulous 
rivals. There are, too, temptations in one's own 



THE NATIVE CHURCH 141 

life which must be sternly fought by the Christian. 
Habits have to be broken; new points of view 
created. 

These common temptations and difficulties are 
enormously increased for the convert from a hostile 
faith in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, while 
others still more formidable assail him. The local 
congregation is usually small in numbers and poor 
in this world's goods. It is surrounded by a vast 
mass of heathenism and superstition. It often en- 
counters the hatred of native priests and the con- 
tempt of official classes. Many of its members have 
endured bitter persecution. Some have been dis- 
owned by their families, deprived of their property, 
scourged, imprisoned, and killed. If the story of 
thousands of them could be written, it would be one 
of the most inspiring records in the development of 
the Church of God. Making all due allowance for 
those who have been actuated by improper motives 
or who have shown themselves lazy or incompetent, 
the fact remains that multitudes have been loyal, 
humble, and loving servants of God. 

If, as Amiel said, " the test of every religion, 
political, or educational system is the man which it 
forms," Christianity is meeting the test in the mis- 
sion field. 

I would not minimize the imperfections of the 
Christians in the mission field. They have them. 
But I confess that, as I think of my brethren in 
non-Christian lands, I do not find myself in a 



142 THE WHY AND HOW OF FOREIGN MISSIONS 1 

critical mood. They are so much better than we 
might expect them to be, they are witnessing for 
Christ under such difficult conditions and with such 
patience and courage and love, that criticism is dis- 
armed. If the reader wishes to know what their 
failings are, let him ask himself what his are. They 
are probably the same, and he can catalog them at 
his leisure. 

But surely our Master who tempers his judgments 
with kindly consideration of circumstances, who 
knows our frame and remembers that we are dust, 
.will not deal less mercifully with the Christians in 
the mission field than he will with us; for some of 
these also have come out of great tribulation, and 
they shall be among those who stand before the 
throne of God forever. 

References for Further Reading 

The Gospel and the New World, Speer (8), X. 

The World and the Gospel, Oldham (6), VI. 

The Universal Elements in the Christian Religion, Hall (23) 

Lecture VI. 
Rising Churches in Non-Christian Lands, Brown (12). 
Devolution in Mission Administration, Daniel Johnson Fleming 



VII 

THE MISSIONARY ENTERPRISE AND 
ITS CRITICS 

Honest criticism. The purity of the missionary's 
motive and the unselfishness of his work do not 
exempt him from criticism, nor should they. Any 
enterprise which depends upon public support is a 
fair object of criticism. Boards and missionaries 
are human and have their share of human infirmities. 
They have a right to insist that criticism shall be 
honest; but within that limit, anyone has a right to 
scrutinize their methods and work and to express 
his conclusions with entire frankness. 

Critics should remember, however, that the for- 
eign missionary enterprise deals with agents who are 
not mechanical instruments or soldiers amenable to 
military discipline, but living, intelligent men and 
women who, like critics, are fallible; that they are 
scattered all over the world; that their acts often 
appear strange because determined by conditions 
which people at home do not understand; and that 
some mistakes are inevitable when men of one race 
attempt to influence those of a different race in so 
vital a matter as religion and its related activities. 
Home enterprises, governmental, business, educa- 
tional, philanthropic, and religious, are attacked by 

143 



144 THE WHY AND HOW OF FOREIGN MISSIONS 

a constant fire of criticism. It is notorious that men 
conducting them often blunder, and that the result 
is frequently waste, duplication, and even failure. 
Why then should we demand perfection of foreign 
missionaries, especially when their work is conducted 
under difficulties more numerous and formidable? 

Criticism of missionaries and their work may be 
roughly divided into four classes: 

(i) Criticism from friends. Some of the criti- 
cisms that come from friends of the work who see 
defects, or think that they do, are undoubtedly just 
and should be heeded. Others are based on misap- 
prehensions and should elicit temperate explana- 
tions. The attitude of boards and missionaries to- 
ward these should be that of the inspired writer who 
said: " Faithful are the wounds of a friend." 

(2) Criticism from the ignorant. There is a 
large class of criticisms which come from those who 
are ignorant of the real character, aims, and work 
of the missionary and the methods of N mission 
boards. There are many people who have never 
seen missionary work or met a missionary or read 
a missionary book, but who, seeing in the news- 
papers or hearing from some friend the class of 
criticisms to which reference has been made, jump 
to the conclusion that they are true. 

The increasing interest in non-Christian lands and 
the comparative ease with which they can now be 
visited are rapidly enlarging the stream of foreign 
travelers. Unfortunately, they usually confine their 



MISSIONARY ENTERPRISE AND ITS CRITICS 145 

visits to the port cities and capitals and become ac- 
quainted only at the foreign hotels and clubs. They 
seldom look up missionaries. What they do see of 
missions sometimes misleads them. Typical mission 
work can seldom be seen in a port city. The mission 
buildings are likely to be memorials or other special 
gifts and give a misleading impression as to the 
scale of missionary expenditure. The Hon. Edwin 
H. Conger, former American Minister to China, 
wrote : " The attacks upon missionaries by sensa- 
tional press correspondents and globe-girdling trav- 
elers have invariably been made without knowledge 
or investigation, and nine tenths of them are the 
veriest libel and the grossest slander." 

It is often interesting to propound some questions 
to such a critic. An American merchant returned 
from China to say that missions were a failure. 
Whereupon his pastor proceeded to interrogate him. 
"What city of China did you visit?" " Canton," 
was the reply. " What did you find in the mission 
schools which impressed you as so faulty?" The 
merchant confessed that he had not seen any 
schools. " And yet," said the pastor, " our board 
alone has in Canton a normal school, a theological 
seminary, boarding-schools for boys and girls, and 
several day-schools, while other denominations also 
have schools. Well, what was there about the mis- 
sion churches which so displeased you? " Again the 
merchant was forced to confess his ignorance; he 
did not know that there was a church in Canton till 



-146 THE WHY AND HOW OF FOREIGN MISSIONS 

his pastor told him that there were, in and near the 
city, scores of churches and chapels, some of them 
large, and with preaching not only every Sunday, 
but, in some instances, every day. 

" But surely you were interested in the hospitals," 
said the pastor. " One of the largest hospitals in 
^Asia stands in a conspicuous position on the river 
front, while the woman's hospital in another part 
of the city is also a great plant, with a medical col- 
lege and a nurses' training-school connected with it." 
Incredible as it may seem, the merchant knew abso- 
lutely nothing about these beneficent institutions. 
Further inquiries elicited the admission that the 
critic knew nothing of the orphanage, or the school 
for the blind, or the hospital for the insane, and 
that he had made no effort whatever to become ac- 
quainted with the missionaries. 

(3) Criticism from the unsympathetic. There 
are many criticisms which are based on want of sym- 
pathy with the fundamental motives and aims of the 
missionary enterprise. It is sometimes wholesome 
for those who live in a missionary environment to 
ascertain how their methods appear to people who 
are outside of that environment. Attention may 
thus be called to defects which would otherwise 
escape notice. Men, however, who are opposed, not 
merely to certain methods, but to the essential char- 
acter of the movement itself can hardly be consid- 
ered fair critics. They will never be silenced, be- 
cause they are inaccessible to the Christian argu- 



MISSIONARY ENTERPRISE AND ITS CRITICS 147 

ment. Their criticisms have been demolished over 
and over again, but they reappear unabashed within 
a month. Even when their objections are overcome, 
their opposition remains. Critics of this class will 
always ridicule the effort to propagate a religion 
which they do not practise. They do not confine 
their criticisms to the missionary, but sneer at 
churches at home, declaring that ministers are hire- 
lings and communicants hypocrites. It does not 
necessarily follow that the criticisms of such men 
are unfounded; but as the editor of The Japan Mail 
once said: " It is within the right of the missionary 
to protest against being arraigned by judges habitu- 
ally hostile to him, and it is within the right of the 
public to scrutinize the pronouncements of such 
judgments with much suspicion." 

Some of the critics of this class live in Europe 
and America, but many of them reside in the treaty 
ports of non-Christian lands. We do not mean that 
the foreign colonies in the concessions are wholly 
composed of such men. They include, on the con- 
trary, some excellent people to whose sympathy and 
helpfulness the missionaries are greatly indebted. 
We are not quoting missionaries, however, but 
widely traveled laymen in the statement that the life 
of the typical foreigner in Asia is such that a mis- 
sionary cannot consistently join in it, no matter how 
cordial his desire to be on friendly terms with his 
countrymen. Colquhoun declares that foreigners in 
China go to get money and then return, do not learn 



148 THE WHY AND HOW OF FOREIGN MISSIONS 

the language, have little intercourse with natives, 
and know little about them. Mr. Frederick Mc- 
Cormick, for six years Associated Press corre- 
spondent in China, says that " the foreign communi- 
ties are not in China, but at China," simply " ranged 
on the shore"; that u they carry on their relations 
with China through a go-between native"; that 
their " society is centered about a club, of which the 
most conspicuous elements are the bar, race-track, 
and book-maker"; and that " the life, for the most 
part, of the communities is in direct antagonism to 
that of missionaries," who live and work among 
the Chinese. 

(4) Criticism from conflicting interests. Among 
the criticisms which spring from those whose inter- 
ests conflict with the work of missions are the ob- 
jections originating with traders who sell rum in 
Africa and opium in China, who traffic in the virtue 
of native girls, or who entice away coolies under 
specious " contracts " which result in virtual slavery. 
Some regions have long been infested by men of 
this infamous type, and while some of their nefari- 
ous practises have been broken up, others still con- 
tinue. Almost every port city in non-Christian 
lands has dens of vice which are kept by white men 
or women and which pander to the lowest passions. 
Men of this kind are, of course, virulent haters of 
missionaries. Charles Darwin asserted that " the 
foreign travelers and residents in the South Sea 
Islands, who write with such hostility to missions 



MISSIONARY ENTERPRISE AND ITS CRITICS 149 

there, are men who find the missionary an obstacle 
to the accomplishment of their evil purposes." 
There are, too, native priests who, like the silver- 
smiths of Ephesus, find their craft in danger, and 
circulate falsehoods regarding missionaries as po- 
litical plotters or adepts in witchcraft. It is not un- 
common in Chinese cities for placards to be con- 
spicuously posted, charging missionaries with boil- 
ing and eating Chinese babies. 

Let us now take up some current criticisms. Sev- 
eral of the most common have already been consid- 
ered in connection with other chapters, and need not 
be repeated here. 

Missionaries inferior. " Missionaries are inferior 
men." The man who makes this objection is almost 
invariably generalizing from some exceptional indi- 
vidual. There are undoubtedly missionaries who 
say and do foolish things, just as some of us at 
home do, and once in a while one proves to be in- 
competent. The reader who hears criticisms which 
impress him as serious should demand names and 
particulars and forward them to the board with 
which the missionary is connected. The boards 
have neither desire nor motive to shield misconduct. 
They will promptly investigate and take such action 
as the facts may justify. 

Travelers who do not confine their observations 
to treaty-port hotels, and who have eyes to see and 
ears to hear the mighty forces which are gradually 



150 THE WHY AND HOW OF FOREIGN MISSIONS 

inaugurating a new era in these awakening lands, re- 
port that the real missionary is an educated, devoted 
man, the highest type of Christian character, and 
that in the spirit of the Master he heals the sick, 
teaches the young, translates the Bible, creates a 
wholesome literature, and inculcates those great 
truths of the Christian religion to which Europe and 
America owe whatever of true greatness they pos- 
sess. No one is perfect, not even a critic; but the 
man who writes only evil of missionaries as a class 
does so at the expense of either his intelligence or 
his sincerity. 

Converts not genuine. u Converts are not 
genuine, but are attracted to the missionary by the 
hope of employment or support." As we have noted 
in a previous chapter the number of native communi- 
cants in connection with foreign missionary churches 
is 2,354,860, besides 2,662,146 non-communi- 
cants and children under Christian instruction; 
but the total number of paid native agents is only 
108,250, many of whom are paid either wholly or 
in part by the native Christians themselves. Mak- 
ing all due allowance for others who are employed 
as servants or who receive assistance in schools, the 
number who are financially aided in any way by the 
missionary is relatively insignificant. The great 
body of native Christians have no financial motive 
whatever for confessing Christ. The Hon. Charles 
Denby, for thirteen years American Minister at 
Peking, has reminded the world that during the 



MISSIONARY ENTERPRISE AND ITS CRITICS 151 

Boxer Uprising " the province of Chih-li furnished 
6,200 Chinese who remained true to their faith in 
spite of danger, suffering, and impending death. It 
is said that 15,000 converts were killed during the 
riots, and not as many as two per cent of them 
apostatized. In the face of these facts, the old al- 
legation that the Chinese converts are treacherous, 
venal, and untrue must be renounced. Let us not 
call them ' rice Christians ' any more." 

Missionaries hated by natives. " Missionaries 
are universally hated by the natives, while the ordi- 
nary foreigner is tolerated." This is grossly untrue. 
The missionaries are far more popular with the peo- 
ple than other foreigners. They travel freely, un- 
armed and unprotected, and it is very rarely that 
they are molested. When they are attacked, it is 
by a class of ruffians who, in the slums of an Ameri- 
can city, attack a Chinese gentleman. In 1900 a 
mob in Paoting-fu murdered the missionaries; but 
the better element of the city freely expressed sor- 
row, gave land for a larger station site, and pre- 
sented to the new mission hospital a silk banner on 
which was worked in letters of gold: " This place 
bestows grace on the Chinese people." A high 
official visited a mission church and seeing the ten 
commandments upon the wall said to the mission- 
aries: u If you can get that teaching into the minds 
of my soldiers they will be good soldiers. I see 
now one notable characteristic of Christianity: it 
seems to have the power to go out from oneself to 



152 THE WHY AND HOW OF FOREIGN MISSIONS 

others; it is not self-centered, but works for others." 
The Hon. Charles Denby wrote regarding the 
massacre of missionaries in the Boxer Uprising 
in 1900: " On an analysis of the bitter anti- 
christian movement, we find that it is largely to be 
explained as primarily antiforeign; that is, largely 
directed against missionaries solely as foreigners, 
not solely as teachers of a foreign religion. The 
missionaries, in the vast majority of cases, are loved 
by those Chinese with whom they succeed in estab- 
lishing intimate relations, and they are almost uni- 
versally respected by all classes in the communities 
in which they are well known." 

A large volume would be required to quote the 
appreciative words of Asiatic and African princes, 
nobles, magistrates, and people wherever they have 
become acquainted with the real character and ob- 
jects of the missionaries and have been able to 
separate them from the white men who have po- 
litical or commercial designs. Hardly a month 
passes without some substantial token of this appre- 
ciation in the form of gifts to mission institutions. 
The Presidents of China, the Mikado of Japan, the 
King of Siam, East Indian, African, and South Sea 
princes without number, and even Moslems have 
made such gifts; while scores of officials, like the 
Chinese Governors of Shantung and Formosa and 
the Siamese Minister of the Interior, have tried to 
secure missionaries for the presidency of govern- 
ment colleges or for other responsible posts. Dur- 



MISSIONARY ENTERPRISE AND ITS CRITICS 153 

ing a period of violence in Urumia, Persia, and also 
during civil war in Yeungkong, China, not only mer- 
chants but military officers on both sides, begged the 
missionaries to keep their valuables for them, saying 
that they did not want receipts as they had implicit 
confidence in the integrity of the missionaries. 

Troublemakers for the government. " Mission- 
aries make trouble for their own governments." 
Former President William H. Taft, in an address 
in New York emphatically denounced this criticism 
as unfounded. Well-informed government officials 
do not complain about missionaries as a class, 
though they may sometimes object to the indiscre- 
tion of a particular individual. Suppose the mis- 
sionary does occasionally need protection; he is a 
citizen, and what kind of a government is it which 
refuses to protect its citizens in their lawful under- 
takings? No one questions the right of a trader, 
however dissolute, to go wherever he pleases and 
to be defended by his country in case of danger. 
Has not a missionary an equal right to the benefits 
of his flag? The Hon. John Barrett, formerly 
American Minister to Siam, says that 150 mission 
workers gave him less trouble in five years than 
fifteen merchants gave him in five months. 

A denationalizing influence. " Missionaries in- 
jure and denationalize their converts." Christianity 
never injured or denationalized any man. It simply 
ma,de him a better man — more honest, more intel- 
ligent, more charitable, more loyal to his own coun- 



154 THE WHY AND HOW OF FOREIGN MISSIONS 
try. Why should it injure an Asiatic or African 
to stop worshiping demons and to begin worshiping 
the true God; to renounce drunkenness, immorality, 
and laziness, and become a sober, moral, and indus- 
trious citizen? The fact is that native Christians 
in Asia and Africa are the very best element in the 
population. The Chinese Government made a large 
grant for indemnity for the lives of the Chinese 
Christians who were murdered during the Boxer 
Uprising. How much it meant to the poor survivors 
will be understood from the fact that the share of 
the Christians in a single county was 10,000 taels. 
But none of the Christians in that county would ac- 
cept the indemnity except only for the property 
they had lost; but they gave one tenth of that to 
support several Chinese evangelists to preach the 
gospel to their former persecutors, and afterward 
they tried to raise a fund to pay back to the gov- 
ernment the indemnity that they did receive. Such 
a course indicates both genuineness of faith and 
loyalty to their country. 

The Christian is a marked man among his fel- 
lows, distinguished not merely for his difference in 
faith, but for superior morality, thrift, and integrity. 
The Siamese Governor of Puket was so impressed 
by the improvement that Christianity had wrought 
in the converts in his province that he said : " Wher- 
ever the Christian missionary settles, he brings good 
to the people. Progress, beneficial institutions, 
cleanliness, and uplifting of the people result from 






S 1 





The library at Ginling College, Nanking 

In the Department of Physics, Lucknow Christian 
College, India 

The library and laboratory, symbols of higher education. In 
Nanking and Lucknow, as in most non-Christian lands, the mis- 
sionary was the pioneer in education. 



MISSIONARY ENTERPRISE AND ITS CRITICS 155 

his labors/' The High Commissioner of Siam, with 
the same idea, told the Rev. Eugene P. Dunlap, in 
1907, that he would give 5,000 ticals 1 for a hos- 
pital in Tap Teang and 10,000 ticals for one in 
Puket if the missionary would open permanent sta- 
tions; and Prince Damrong, Minister of the Inte- 
rior, said that the government was glad to give 
positions to the kind of young men who were trained 
in the Bangkok Christian College, because they pos- 
sessed the qualities of intelligence, ambition, and 
character which were desired in official service. 

Several years ago, when Chinese merchants were 
asked to subscribe money to rebuild a bridge which 
had been destroyed by a flood, they imposed the con- 
dition that the money should be expended by Chris- 
tians " because Christians could be trusted not to 
steal it." 

Sir Andrew H. L. Fraser, for many years a 
British administrator in India, wrote: u It is a high 
estimate that I have formed of the character of 
many native Christians. There are undoubtedly 
some natives who are only nominally Christian and 
who give an evil report to Christianity; but the mis- 
sionary bodies as a rule are careful in this matter; 
and we have no reason to be ashamed of our Indian 
Christian friends for whom I have as high a regard 
as for my friends in the West and whose characters 
I have recognized as becoming more and more 

1 United States equivalent of a tical is thirty-eight cents at 
normal rate of exchange. 



156 THE WHY AND HOW OF FOREIGN MISSIONS 

Christlike as they submit themselves to his teaching 
and to the influence of his spirit." 

A sectarian influence. " Missionaries preach sec- 
tarianism instead of fundamental Christianity." 
This is precisely what they do not do. There is far 
less sectarianism on the foreign field than at home. 
Denominational lines are often virtually obliterated. 
Where they are prominent, the fault is usually with 
the home Church. The missionaries have already 
united in several lands, and they would do so in 
some others if the ecclesiastical authorities at home 
would permit them. This important question is dis- 
cussed at length in the author's separate book en- 
titled Unity and Missions. 

Charity begins at home. " There is much to be 
done in our own land, and charity begins at home." 
One might urge with equal truth that education be- 
gins with the alphabet; but it ends there only with 
the feeble-minded. A New York pastor once said 
that " we ought to give less for foreign missions 
and more for the conversion of the foreigners within 
the shade of our churches." If he had looked into 
the Report of the Charity Organization Society of 
New York, he would have found a list of 3,800 
religious and philanthropic agencies in his own city. 
A high authority declares that " there is no other 
city in the world, except London, where more is 
being done to point the lost to the Son of God than 
in New York." 

The extent to which religious facilities have been 



MISSIONARY ENTERPRISE AND ITS CRITICS 157 

provided in American cities in indicated by the fact 
that St. Louis has one church for 2,862 of popula- 
tion, Chicago one for 2,700, Boston one for 3,130, 
and Minneapolis one for 1,706. In the United 
States there are about 207,734 Protestant churches, 
or one for every 427 of the non-Catholic population, 
one Protestant minister for every 535 persons, one 
Christian worker for eighty-seven, and one com- 
municant for four. Talk about the relative needs of 
the United States ! In a town of 8,000 people, there 
are three Presbyterian churches, three United Pres- 
byterian, three Methodist, two Episcopal, and one 
Disciples. For every missionary the churches of the 
United States send abroad, 2,488 members remain 
at home. There are about 165,000 Protestant min- 
isters and in addition there are many thousands of 
persons who devote themselves to religious work 
as a separate profession. In the light of these facts, 
the statement that " the Church cannot see the 
misery which is under her own nose at home " ap- 
pears rather absurd. 

How is it abroad? Counting missionaries of all 
classes and missionary wives, Africa has one mis- 
sionary for each 24,000 of population, Japan one 
for each 52,000, India one for each 62,000, and 
China one for each 65,000. The contrast is really 
greater than these figures indicate, for the reason 
that they include wives, while those for America do 
not. 

" According to the most conservative estimate 



158 THE WHY AND HOW OF FOREIGN MISSIONS 

there are at least 160,000,000 people of the non- 
Christian world utterly untouched by missionary 
effort. This figure does not include the peoples of 
localities — and there are many such — where there 
are merely not enough missionaries to handle the 
work; it includes only the peoples living in areas 
where there are no missionaries at all. 

" There are still 480,000 square miles of terri- 
tory in China proper with thirty-five million to forty 
million inhabitants utterly unclaimed by any mis- 
sionary agency, and in Turkestan, Tibet, and Mon- 
golia there are eleven or twelve million more for- 
gotten non-Christians. 

" At least twenty-six millions of the natives of 
Central Africa have no missions among them or 
near them. Of the remaining twelve millions over 
one half are practically untouched by the influence 
of the missions." x 

Our debt to earlier missionary movements. It is 
true that there are unconverted people at home; but 
what would be thought of a business man who de- 
clined to sell goods outside of his own city until all 
its inhabitants used them? The fact that some 
Americans are irreligious does not lessen our obli- 
gation to give the gospel to the world. If the early 
Church had refused to send the gospel to other na- 
tions until its own nation was converted, Christianity 
would have died in its cradle, for the land in which 

1 From the World Survey, Foreign Volume, Interchurch World 
Movement. 



MISSIONARY ENTERPRISE AND ITS CRITICS 159 

it originated was never really Christianized and is 
today Mohammedan. The argument that our own 
land is not yet evangelized would have made the 
Church at Antioch disobey the command of the 
Holy Spirit to send forth Paul and Barnabas. It 
would have kept Augustine of Canterbury from 
carrying the gospel to England. It would have pre- 
vented the founding of churches in America, and 
would, today, cripple all our home missionary work, 
since there is no part of the United States more god- 
less than some of the states where the gospel has 
been known the longest. Christ did not tell his 
disciples to withhold his faith from other nations 
until they had converted Palestine; he told them to 
go into all the world and preach the gospel " to the 
whole creation." It is because they obeyed that 
command that we have the gospel today. 

The argument that we ought to convert America 
first because it would then convert the world, is one 
of those glittering generalities that do not bear 
analysis. America has had the gospel for two hun- 
dred years, and is not converted yet. England has 
had it more than a thousand years, and is as far 
from conversion as America. How long will it be 
at this rate before our homelands will be saved? 
Must countless millions die without Christ, while 
we are trying to win white men, most of whom have 
heard of him hundreds of times? It is the duty of 
American Christians to try to convert America ; but 
that is not their only duty, just as the conversion 



160 THE WHY AND HOW OF FOREIGN MISSIONS 

of Palestine was not the only duty of the early 
Church. I am not urging neglect of our responsi- 
bilities at home, but simply replying to the frequent 
objection that too much attention is being given to 
our responsibilities abroad. The Christian of today, 
like the Christian of the first century, has a God- 
ordained mission to the world which cannot wait 
upon the indifference or hostility of people at home. 

Indeed no nation ever will be wholly Christian- 
ized, for not only will there always be individuals 
yvho refuse or neglect to accept Christ, but before 
any one generation can be converted, a new genera- 
tion will have grown up and the work must thus be 
ever beginning anew. The argument, therefore, 
that we should not preach the gospel to other na- 
tions until our own has been converted issues in an 
absurdity, since it would perpetually confine Chris- 
tianity to those nations which already have it and 
would forever forbid its extension. 

Imposing an alien civilization. " Missionaries 
are forcing another civilization on lands which al- 
ready have civilizations of their own that are 
adapted to their needs." Missionaries do nothing 
of the kind. A higher type of civilization does in- 
deed follow the labors of the missionaries; but this 
is an incidental result, not an object. 

As for forcing religion, no native is obliged to 
become a Christian against his will. The missionary 
simply offers and explains the gospel. Surely he has 
as much right to do this as English and American 



MISSIONARY ENTERPRISE AND ITS CRITICS 161 

manufacturers have to offer and explain their flour 
and cotton and machinery and liquor. " To talk 
to persons who choose to listen; to throw open wide 
the doors of chapels where natives who desire may 
hear the Christian faith explained and urged upon 
their attention; to sell at half cost or to give the 
Bible and Christian literature freely to those who 
may care to read; to heal the sick without cost; to 
instruct children whose parents are desirous that 
they should receive education — surely none of these 
constitute methods or practises to which the word 
1 force ' may be applied, under any allowable use of 
the English language." * 

Missionaries live extravagantly. u I hear that a 
certain missionary keeps four servants while I can 
afford but one !" cries a wife in America. Allow 
us to suggest some considerations which may not 
have occurred to this wife. 

First, her one servant doing general housework 
means as much help as four servants mean in a mis- 
sion field. A cook in India will do nothing but cook; 
a sw r eeper nothing but sweep; a water-drawer noth- 
ing but draw water; and so on through the whole 
list, each one, moreover, performing his task in a 
spirit the reverse of strenuous. A cook would die 
rather than touch a broom, for he would break his 
caste. " If," writes a missionary wife, " my own 

1 The Hon. Chester Holcombe. 



ife THE WHY AND HGW OF FOREIGN MISSIONS 

pleasure were consulted, I would certainly prefer 
working in my own home to visiting dirty homes 
infested with vermin and offensive odors. It seems 
a little strange that the missionary who pays her 
servants out of her own salary is so much blamed 
for what she would gladly help if she could." 

Second, consider that at home we have many as- 
sistants whose services we fail to take into account 
in comparing ourselves with foreign missionaries. 
Our complex and highly developed civilization in 
Europe and America enables the average man to 
avail himself daily of the labors of scores of others. 
The missionary, living in more primitive conditions, 
must hire servants, or neglect his work and spend 
the greater part of his time doing things himself 
that natives can do just as well and at smaller cost. 

Third, the foreign missionary, living as he does 
in lands where hotels are few and where Oriental 
ideas of hospitality prevail, is forced to keep open 
house for all comers. The occasional traveler and 
the constantly passing and repassing missionaries of 
his own and other churches must be freely enter- 
tained. The natives, too, call in startling numbers. 
The host, like Abraham of old, must hasten to set 
food and drink before every guest, for failure to 
do so would be deemed a breach of hospitality and 
an offense which would probably end the mission- 
ary's influence. A missionary's wife in Syria says 
that she often had twenty to meals and a hundred 
callers in a single day, all of whom had to be served 



MISSIONARY ENTERPRISE AND ITS CRITICS 163 

with cakes and coffee. Another in China had 4,580 
women visitors in one year, besides men and chil- 
dren. Tea had to be provided for all that host. 

Fourth, would it be common sense to send an edu- 
cated Christian woman as a foreign missionary, and 
then force her to spend her time in cooking meals 
and washing dishes, when she can hire native serv- 
ants who are glad to do that work for a few cents 
a day? Julian Ralph, writing from Asia on this 
subject, says: " I demand that the missionaries keep 
servants. They are paid to give their time to mis- 
sionary work, and, especially in the case of a wife 
and mother I claim she has no right to do house- 
work, sewing, and similar work and give only her 
leisure from such things to that service for which 
she has a regular salary." 

Let missionaries live like natives. Some people 
innocently ask, " Why don't missionaries live as the 
natives do?" As a matter of fact, the masses of 
the common people live on a scale on which no white 
man could survive. The death-rate among them is 
appalling. The men die of tuberculosis and pneu- 
monia and fevers and cholera and smallpox. The 
children are carried off in regiments by diphtheria 
and measles and scarlet fever and cholera infantum; 
while as for the women, at the age of forty, when 
the American woman is in the full splendor of her 
beauty, the typical Asiatic and African woman is 
old and withered. 

No, boards are not going to ask foreign mission- 



164 THE WHY AND HOW OF FOREIGN MISSIONS 

aries to live as the natives do. Making all due al- 
lowance for exceptional places, it still remains true 
that the average foreign missionary lives and works 
under a strain which few at home realize, and it 
would be folly to compel him to adopt a mode of 
life that would wreck his constitution in a few years. 
Common sense dictates that, having incurred the 
expense of sending him out, he should be so equipped 
that he may be able to do the work for which he 
was sent. 

We grant that there are richer natives who live 
on a much better scale; but their expenditures are so 
great that a missionary could not possibly equal 
them. The Chinese mandarin and the East Indian 
noble often spend money lavishly; but even then, 
their ideas of comfort differ so widely from ours 
that their homes could scarcely be deemed ideal by 
the average American. Thousands of young men 
in England have pleasanter bedrooms than a Chi- 
nese viceroy, and the average mechanic in the 
United States has a more comfortably warmed 
house than a noble of Japan, in spite of the costly 
furs that lie on his floor and the elaborate carvings 
that adorn his room. The food and general man- 
ner of life of the wealthier classes in Asia would 
quickly undermine the health of a European or 
American. 

Nor would a poverty-stricken mode of life be 
more likely to win the natives to Christianity. Dr. 
John Forman, of India, made a persistent effort to 



MISSIONARY ENTERPRISE AND ITS CRITICS 165 

live like the natives. He rented a small room, wore 
cheap clothes, and ate the simplest food. He writes : 
11 What I had longed for was to get near the people, 
to convince them that I really was working only for 
their salvation and that I was denying myself for 
them. Never have I made a more dismal failure. 
Everything turned out just as I had not expected. 
They seemed to regard me as nothing but poor 
white trash. The idea that I had voluntarily given 
up anything or was denying myself never occurred to 
them. I was still the same government official, only 
had not succeeded in getting a very remunerative 
position. I had less influence instead of more." 

The fact is that an American simply cannot equal 
an East Indian fakir in his mode of living. The 
latter sprinkles himself with ashes, begs his frugal 
meals, wears nothing but a loin-cloth, subjects him- 
self to frightful austerities, performs his devotions 
in public places, and never washes himself. The 
plainest living possible to a foreigner impresses the 
natives as luxurious in comparison with their own 
devotees, and therefore has absolutely no good 
effect upon them. 

Some missionaries, who do not believe in boards 
or fixed salaries, have gone out independently, with 
the intention of supporting themselves or of sub- 
sisting on the direct spontaneous gifts of individuals 
at home. The results have usually been disastrous. 
One student of missions has said that it seemed to 
him u that India was literally strewn with the 



166 THE WHY AND HOW OF FOREIGN MISSIONS 

wrecks of mission work begun with such independ- 
ent missionaries, but for one reason and another 
abandoned. Much the same is true of Africa." 

A disregard of means that God has provided is 
neither religion nor business. The Christian at 
home has no right to demand all the good things of 
life for himself — comfortable house, abundant food, 
adequate clothing — and then insist that his personal 
representative in preaching the gospel abroad shall 
be half starved. If it is a Christian's duty to live 
like a tramp without visible means of support, let 
the home pastor and layman set the example. It 
is easier to do it here than in a non-Christian land 
and less dangerous to health. 

Missionary homes are luxurious. Information 
about the houses of missionaries is frequently de- 
sired, especially by those who have been disturbed 
by statements that they are equal to the houses of 
native noblemen. A similar statement might be 
made about the houses of many American me- 
chanics. We do not deny that the missionary's 
dwelling often appears palatial in comparison with 
the wretched hovels in which the natives herd like 
rabbits in a warren. Shattered health and rapidly 
filled cemeteries have taught missionaries that, if 
they are to live, they must go a little apart from 
the malodorous, unsanitary, human pigsty, with its 
rotting garbage and open cesspools, and build a 
house with a sufficient number of cubic feet of space 
for the persons who are to occupy it. Then the 



MISSIONARY ENTERPRISE AND ITS CRITICS 167 

natural taste of the husband leads him to make a 
little lawn and to set out a few shrubs and flowers, 
while indoors his wife sensibly makes everything' as 
cosy and attractive as she can with the means at 
her disposal. Contrasting as it does with the miser- 
able habitations in the vicinity such a home attracts 
attention; but its attractiveness is not due to the 
lavish expenditure of money, but to the good taste 
and inventiveness of a cultivated, intelligent family. 
A few residences have been built by wealthy rela- 
tives for particular missionaries, but the average 
residence is about like the home of a country clergy- 
man or school-teacher in England and America; 
although in the tropics, the fertility of the soil, the 
luxuriance of palms and foliage plants, and the 
cheapness of labor make it easier for the missionary 
to have beautiful grounds. 

The visitor approaching Chefoo, China, is likely 
to remark upon the buildings that stand conspicu- 
ously upon the hill, and to hear a sneer about the 
selfishness and ostentation of missionaries in select- 
ing the best sites. The facts are that when the mis- 
sionaries went to Chefoo, they could not afford to 
buy in the city, and they took the hill site because 
it was unoccupied and cheap. That the place be- 
came valuable is simply a tribute to the good judg- 
ment of the missionaries. 

Another illustration occurred in Persia, where the 
missionaries were accused of having for a summer 
resort at Lake Urumia M one of the finest palaces in 



168 THE WHY AND HOW OF FOREIGN MISSIONS 

all the land." The " palace " referred to was an 
old, abandoned one-story and basement mud build- 
ing, which the owner was delighted to sell to the 
missionaries for $80. They fixed it up as best they 
could with a private gift of $170, and then the 
several missionary families of Urumia took turns 
in occupying it for a few weeks during the heated 
term. 

Their religions are good enough. " The re- 
ligions of other races are good enough for them." 
Then they are good enough for us, for the peoples 
of other races are our fellow-men, with the needs 
of our common humanity. We have not heard, how- 
ever, of any sane critic who believes that Islam or 
Hinduism or Buddhism are " good enough " for 
Europeans and Americans, and we have scant re- 
spect for the Pharisaism which asserts that they will 
suffice for Persians, East Indians, and Chinese. 
Judaism was the best of non-Christian faiths, but 
Christ deemed it necessary to preach a better one. 

It is difficult to understand how an American or 
European, who inherits all the blessings of our 
Christian faith, can deny those blessings to the rest 
of the world. Christianity found the white man's 
ancestors in the forests and swamps of northern 
Europe, considerably lower in the scale of civiliza- 
tion than the Chinese and Japanese of today. 
Jerome wrote that when " a boy, living in Gaul, he 
beheld the Scots, a people in Britain, eating human 
flesh; though there were plenty of cattle and sheep 



MISSIONARY ENTERPRISE AND ITS CRITICS 169 

at their disposal, yet they would prefer a ham of 
the herdsman or a slice of the female breast as a 
luxury." The gospel of Christ brought us out of 
the pit of barbarism. Why should we doubt its 
power to do for other races what it has done for 
ours? 

The notion that each nation's religion is best for 
it, and should, therefore, not be disturbed, is never 
made by those who have a proper understanding 
of Christianity or of its relation to the race. It is 
based upon the old paganism which believed that 
each tribe had its own god who was its special cham- 
pion against all the other gods. Such an idea is not 
only false in itself, but it is directly contrary to the 
teachings of Christ, who declared that his gospel 
was for all men and that it was the supreme duty 
of his followers to carry it to all men. 

Contrast with St. Paul. Some critics of modern 
missions are fond of comparing the modern mis- 
sionary with St. Paul. They imagine that something 
is wrong because the former appears to be less suc- 
cessful. Such critics overlook the fact that St. Paul 
was not a foreign missionary at all, as that term is 
now used. By birth, language, citizenship, and man- 
ners and customs St. Paul was of the same nation as 
the people to whom he preached. Judea was then 
an integral part of the Roman Empire, and Paul 
openly proclaimed that he was a Roman citizen. 
The population of the United States is a conglom- 
erate of Anglo-Saxons, Germans, Scandinavians, 



170 THE WHY AND HOW OF FOREIGN MISSIONS 

Italians, and various other nationalities; but would 
anyone contend that Theodore Roosevelt was not an 
American because his ancestry was Dutch? St. Paul 
was preaching to the peoples of his own country. 
In other words, from the point of view of our mis- 
sionary terminology, he was a native minister rather 
than a foreign missionary. Unlike the modern mis- 
sionary, he did not go to the people of his genera- 
tion as an alien. He did not have to spend years 
in learning their language or to struggle all through 
his ministry with difficulties of accent and idiom. 
His influence was not crippled by inability to under- 
stand the point of view of his hearers. He knew 
them, not as an American knows Asiatics, but as an 
Asiatic knows Asiatics. Nor was St. Paul unable 
to live on the scale of the people of the country 
in which he worked; wherever he went he could live 
as a native and preach without salary because he 
was in his own country and able to support himself 
by working at his trade as a tent-maker. 

In all of these particulars, the twentieth-century 
missionary is seriously handicapped in ways from 
which St. Paul was either wholly or largely free. 
The white man in Asia is an alien, an exotic, trans- 
planted there at great expense, maintained with dif- 
ficulty, obliged to have many things that the native 
minister does not require, and living, thinking, and 
speaking on a plane so widely different from that 
of the people that the chasm between them can sel- 
dom be bridged. 



MISSIONARY ENTERPRISE AND ITS CRITICS 171 

The contention that St. Paul found a prepared 
people among the Jews cannot indeed be pressed 
very far, for most of the Jews rejected his teachings 
and the Gentile races were substantially in the same 
moral and intellectual state as the Asiatics of today. 
Making all due allowance for this, however, the 
general fact remains that the Old Testament teach- 
ing of one true God and the coming of a Messiah 
had been carried by the Jews of the dispersion to 
every part of the known world, and that the syna- 
gogue offered a convenient place for the proclama- 
tion of the fulfilment of prophecy. In the average 
city that St. Paul visited, he found devout souls who 
were eagerly waiting for " the consolation of 
Israel." The Acts of the Apostles graphically 
describes how St. Paul availed himself of this foun- 
dation work and what a good starting point it gave 
him. 

But what a dull incomprehension of the unity and 
personality of God the modern missionary met, 
what perverted preemption of the Messianic idea 
he encountered in Buddha and Confucius and Mo- 
hammed, and what weary years he had to spend 
before he could effect in even a few minds a lodg- 
ment of those truths which lay ready to St. Paul's 
hand! Many a missionary whose spirituality and 
devotion were beyond question has toiled for anxious 
years before he succeeded in bringing even one Chi- 
nese to the point where St. Paul found a Lydia. 

Missionaries accomplish little. " Missionaries 



172 THE WHY AND HOW OF FOREIGN MISSIONS 

are accomplishing very little," is an objection that 
might fairly offset the objection that missionaries 
are making revolutionary changes. Both cannot be 
true. The fact is that missionary work is remark- 
ably successful and more so now than ever before. 

The justification of foreign mission effort is not 
dependent upon tabulated results, but it is never- 
theless interesting to note them. The natural pre- 
sumptions would be that Christianity would make 
very slow progress in a non-Christian land, for it is 
regarded with suspicion as an alien faith. It is op- 
posed by a powerful priesthood and at variance with 
long-established customs. It is difficult for us who 
were born and bred in a Christian land, and who 
have been familiar with the gospel from our infancy, 
to understand how hard it is for the Oriental mind 
to grasp the new conceptions which Christianity in- 
culcates. It would not be reasonable, therefore, to 
expect as high a percentage of increase as at home, 
where centuries of Christian work have prepared 
the soil and created an atmosphere, where Chris- 
tianity is popular, and worldly motives blend with 
religious to attract men to the Church. 

But what are the comparative facts? The aver- 
age annual net increase of the Protestant churches 
in America is about two per cent, while the increase 
on the foreign field is about six per cent. The last 
government census in India showed that while the 
population increased two and a half per cent in ten 
years, the Protestant church membership increased 



MISSIONARY ENTERPRISE AND ITS CRITICS 173 

fifty per cent. The gain in China in twenty years has 
been over one hundred per cent. Protestant mis- 
sionary effort in the Philippine Islands may be said 
to date from 1899; since then about 50,000 adult 
communicants have been received. In 1886 the 
Korea missionaries reported the first convert. Seven 
years later there were only about 100 in the whole 
country. Now there are 219,000 Christians. The 
largest congregation in the world is in Elat, Africa, 
where there was not a single Christian twenty-five 
years ago. While not all mission fields have been 
as fruitful as those that have been mentioned, the 
general rate of progress is excellent. 

In spite of the advantages in Europe and America 
i — historic associations, favorable public opinion, 
splendid churches, numerous workers — Christianity 
is making more rapid progress on the foreign field 
than in the home field. We have been working in 
non-Christian lands only a little over a century, in 
most fields far less than this, and yet the number 
of converts is already far greater than the number of 
Christians in the Roman Empire at the end of the 
first century. No other work in the world is so suc- 
cessful, and no other yields such large returns for 
the expenditures made. 

References for Further Reading 

The Missionary and His Critics, Barton (10). 

The Democratic Movement in Asia, Dennett (2), III, IV. 

The Gospel and the New World, Speer (8), IV. 



VIII 

THE HOME CHURCH AND THE 
ENTERPRISE 

The call to advance. The foreign missionary 
enterprise is not the exclusive business of mission- 
aries and boards, nor does it rest solely upon clergy- 
men and women's societies. It rests upon every in- 
dividual Christian. The responsibilities and privi- 
leges of the Christian life are inseparable, and no 
one who repudiates the former has a right to the 
latter. The world's need of Christ is the measure 
of the obligation of the Church. 

What are the needs? In the first place, the force 
on the field must be greatly increased. Making all 
due allowance for the duty of the growing native 
churches, there ought to be at least one man mis- 
sionary for every 50,000 of the slightly more than 
1,000,000,000 people of the non-Christian world, 
besides a proportionate number of women workers. 
The present force consists of only 9,770 men, 
clerical and lay, and this number includes the sick, 
the aged, recruits learning the language, and the 
considerable number on furlough. The effective 
force of men does not exceed 8,200, or one for every 
121,951 of the population. This means that the 
average board would need to multiply its force 

174 



THE HOME CHURCH AND THE ENTERPRISE 175 

nearly two and one-half times in order to provide 
one man for every 50,000 people of non-Christian 
lands. 

To support this increase, the present rate of giv- 
ing would have to be proportionately enlarged. At 
a very conservative estimate each man represents an 
annual cost of approximately $2,500, this sum cov- 
ering not only his support and that of his family, 
but his outfit, traveling expenses, and the additional 
work which he calls into existence. Thus, 11,800 
more men would involve an increased expenditure of 
$29,500,000 a year, and this would take no account 
of the property that would be required for the resi- 
dences, colleges, boarding-schools, theological semi- 
naries, hospitals, and printing-presses which would 
have to be provided and equipped. 

A campaign of education. If volunteers and 
funds are to be provided on an adequate scale, the 
home Church must be kept aroused to the need. 
What it lacks is not ability, but interest. If all con- 
gregations and individuals would do in proportion 
to their ability what some congregations and indi- 
viduals are already doing, some of us might live to 
see each land, not indeed completely Christianized, 
but equipped with a native Church able to handle 
a large part of the remaining work. The enlarged 
interest of the home Church is therefore a vital fac- 
tor in the situation. The urgent need is for a 
vigorous pressing of the campaign of education. 

The three main agencies of education are the 



176 THE WHY AND HOW OF FOREIGN MISSIONS 

home, the school, and the church. The first-named 
does very little that is systematic, and the two latter 
have divided the field, one taking secular and the 
other religious instruction. Whatever the short- 
comings of the school, it is at least attacking its 
problems in earnest. It does its work on a vast 
scale and expects taxpayers to furnish it with ade- 
quate equipment. It claims all the children of 
school-going age for twenty to thirty hours each 
week, and it provides trained and salaried teachers 
for their instruction. 

In religious education, much less is being done. 
The Sunday-school is a regular institution in every 
section of the country, and an immense army of 
scholars assembles every week. Millions of quarter- 
lies and other lesson helps are printed annually, and 
county, state, and national organizations hold nu- 
merous conventions to discuss problems and arouse 
enthusiasm. We have great cause for gratitude to 
God for all that has been accomplished in the re- 
ligious instruction of our children and young people; 
but in comparison with secular education we must 
admit that there are three conspicuous weaknesses 
in the present system. 

I. Religious education receives only a fraction 
of the time that the secular school obtains, the period 
available for class work being only one fortieth as 
long. Half or three quarters of an hour once a 
week does not afford sufficient time. Recent studies 
have shown that taking all Protestant churches to- 



THE HOME CHURCH AND THE ENTERPRISE 177 

gether they provide only twenty-four hours of re- 
ligious instruction per year for their children. 

2. Teachers receive far less training for religious 
than for secular work. While the body of Sunday- 
school teachers includes some of the most able and 
cultured people in the country, it also includes many 
who could never pass the public school test. In 
some localities teachers are in such demand that any- 
one willing to take a class is pressed into service. 

3. The curriculum of the Sunday-school is yet 
very meager. This is almost a necessary conse- 
quence of the two other weaknesses. There is time 
for only one thing, which of course is the text of 
the Bible, and owing to the general lack of trained 
teachers even this is too often not presented in any 
richness of content. 

From the missionary point of view, these weak- 
nesses are grievous. They mean that millions of 
children pass through our Sunday-schools without 
any adequate instruction in the greatest task of the 
Christian Church, and that millions of our young 
people and adults are today without any more con- 
secutive ideas on the subject than they may have 
picked up in merely occasional missionary sermons, 
or in the too fugitive treatment of missionary meet- 
ings. How shall we reach these persons with clear, 
connected, and inspiring missionary instruction? 

Intensive missionary education. The mission 
study class has been found a great help in the solu- 
tion of this difficult problem. It avoids the time 



178 THE WHY AND HOW OF FOREIGN MISSIONS 

difficulty by holding separate sessions for short 
weekly courses, at hours that prove most convenient 
to the members of the group. It is gradually 
supplying a body of persons who know something 
about missions and are able to teach others. Sunday- 
school teachers should be strongly urged to enter a 
mission study class each year to get a vision of some 
field or phase of the missionary enterprise. Even 
under present conditions they will then have plenty 
of opportunity to develop missionary spirit in their 
scholars. Without such a spirit there is no likeli- 
hood that they will accomplish anything under any 
conditions, however favorable. 

A recent development in missionary education is 
the Church School of Missions. This is a serious 
effort on the part of the entire local church to study, 
in groups meeting simultaneously, mission fields or 
problems of timely and special interest. The plan 
has proved adaptable to all sorts of local conditions 
and is producing important results. In many 
churches the period of the midweek services is de- 
voted to this study for six or eight weeks. There 
are as many groups as are needed to provide for all 
who enroll and as can be furnished with efficient 
leaders. Usually these groups reassemble at the 
end of an hour's study for a service of worship and 
prayer, for an address by a missionary from the 
field, for a stereopticon lecture, or for a missionary 
dramatization presented by members of the school. 
A series of summer conferences and winter institutes 



THE HOME CHURCH AND THE ENTERPRISE 179 

are held every year for the express purpose of train- 
ing leaders in more effective methods of work, and 
these conferences are both suggestive and inspiring. 

The systematic study of missions is one of the 
most promising signs of the times. It should be 
pushed until no congregation is without a Church 
Schools of Missions or at least one or more study 
classes. These should prove a power house for all 
sorts of missionary effort in the church. It should 
lead to instructive and enthusiastic missionary meet- 
ings, to wider missionary reading, to the introduction 
of missionary exercises and supplementary instruc- 
tion in the Sunday-school, to the formation of mis- 
sion bands, and to increased prayer and giving and 
service on the part of the whole church. 

Missions and pocketbooks. When it comes to 
giving, we must face the fact that the gift for for- 
eign missions is but slightly over one dollar per 
capita. Only about half of the membership of the 
average church participates in the gifts for missions, 
and many pastors make no adequate effort to reach 
the other half. A committee of one denomination 
reported that nine tenths of the contributions were 
made by one tenth of the membership. A study of 
thirty-two typical churches of a leading denomina- 
tion made in 19 19 revealed the fact that only 33.6 
per cent of their 13,376 members made regular 
gifts to church benevolences of all kinds, the per 
capita gift being 10.5 cents per week. 

Some whole churches give nothing at all, and 



180 THE WHY AND HOW OF FOREIGN MISSIONS 

others give only through the women's societies, the 
pastor and all his officers standing helplessly or in- 
differently aloof. The plea that they are small and 
weak brings to mind the efforts of some little 
home missionary churches, mere handfuls of poor 
people, who send offerings for every one of the 
boards of the Church. A feeble congregation is 
made stronger by doing what it can. The individual 
Christian needs to be educated as to his relation to 
the world-wide mission of the Son of God and to 
give proportionately and prayerfully towards it, 
whether he is rich or poor, in a small church or a 
large one. 

If ever a congregation had reason to assign local 
burdens as an excuse for neglecting foreign missions, 
it was the little church at Antioch when " the Holy 
Ghost said: Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the 
work whereunto I have called them." It was the 
only church in a large and wicked city. No church 
in all Europe or America has a greater work at 
home in proportion to its resources. The devoted 
little band, however, never flinched; but " When 
they had fasted and prayed and laid their hands 
on them, they sent them away." Why should not 
the modern Church, with its vastly greater strength, 
equal the faith and courage of the Church at 
Antioch? 

No sympathy should be wasted over the common 
excuse that people do not have the money to give. 
Granting that some individuals do not, the fact re- 



THE HOME CHURCH AND THE ENTERPRISE 181 

mains that the typical Christian could quadruple his 
contribution to foreign missions. He spends money 
freely on things that interest him. The evangeliza- 
tion of the world is too vital an enterprise to take 
what is left after everything else has been provided 
for. Many commercial enterprises employ more 
men and expend more money than the Church would 
need for the evangelization of the world. Business 
men do not hesitate to attempt the most colossal 
things in secular affairs. Not content with the trade 
of America, they are competing with other nations 
for the trade of the world. On every side we hear 
of big buildings, big ships, big steel plants, which 
cost immense sums. A single American university 
has an annual budget of six and a half millions and 
is calling upon the public for several millions more ; 
while a mission board that has thirty-six higher edu- 
cational institutions under its care, besides a large 
number of academies, hospitals, churches, and all 
the varied and extensive work of a modern mission 
board, has a total budget of only half that of this 
single home university. 

Why then should it be deemed fanciful for the 
Church to attempt to raise for the evangelization of 
the world a sum which many of its members regard 
as moderate for a secular enterprise? Shall we 
work for our own enrichment and for our home 
interests on a vast scale and conduct the world-wide 
work of God for our fellow-men on a small one? 
We realize of course that not all the wealth of which 



182 THE WHY AND HOW OF FOREIGN MISSIONS 

we hear so much is tributary to foreign missions, 
and that many church members are in straitened 
circumstances. We remember, too, that there is 
Christian work at home which should be better sup- 
ported. But intelligent, prayerful, systematic, pro- 
portionate giving on the part of poor and rich alike 
would provide ample funds for missions, without 
injustice to any family or other obligations. There 
are thousands of Christians who do not hesitate to 
incur personal expenditures for a hundred times the 
amount that they give to foreign missions. 

Method and team-work. We need not enter here 
into questions of method in raising money. Effec- 
tive ways of doing a thing will easily be found by a 
church that is determined to do it. The boards will 
gladly send detailed information to all who ask for 
it. The important thing is to have a method, and 
to work it in such a way as to secure some offering 
from every individual, not necessarily large in 
amount, but proportionate to ability, and to reach 
the absentees as well as those who are present at a 
given service or in a canvass for subscriptions. 

The pastor has the chief responsibility in this 
effort to arouse the church. He is its ordained 
leader. Not all pastors are meeting their obliga- 
tions in this matter, but even the most zealous one 
can accomplish little without the support of his 
members. He has many burdens, and the advance 
move may need to come from someone in the con- 
gregation. 



THE HOME CHURCH AND THE ENTERPRISE 183 

Each church should have a committee to co- 
operate with the pastor in promoting foreign mis- 
sionary interest and gifts. This committee should 
do among the men of the church what the women's 
society does so well among the women. Experience 
has shown that the men will make prompt and gen- 
erous response, if intelligent and systematic effort 
is put forth to reach them. 

There are many persons who can contribute but 
little money to the missionary cause, who are able 
to render service of positive value by devoting their 
energies to stimulating interest in the church. Work 
of this kind may count for more in the end than 
large gifts. Three things should be kept in mind 
to this end: First, the service should be offered in 
the same spirit of sacrifice which we expect mission- 
aries on the field to manifest; Second, the worker 
should not be discouraged if the obstacles are at 
first very great, but he should work and pray the 
way through to success; Third, care should be taken 
to avoid alienating people by tactless behavior. We 
often see persons of undoubted zeal and consecra- 
tion who make the cause they espouse a byword in 
the community on account of the methods they em- 
ploy to advertise it. Good sense is essential to suc- 
cessful effort. 

Taking missions seriously. We protest against 
the " two-cents-a-week " plea. It does not secure 
the gift of the poor, it benumbs the liberality of the 
rich, and it belittles the whole enterprise. Fancy 



184 THE WHY AND HOW OF FOREIGN MISSIONS 

telling a man who commands not only the con- 
veniences, but many of the luxuries of life, that his 
foreign missionary responsibilities are met by a gift 
of two cents a week! He spends more than that for 
blacking his boots. A proportionate gift for the 
average layman is not pennies at all, nor even silver, 
but bills or checks. 

We insist, too, that missionary operations have 
gone about as far as they can go in dependence upon 
the passing-the-hat method among those who happen 
to be present at a given service. Inquiry in a certain 
state developed the fact that only forty per cent of 
the reported membership attended church on a Sun- 
day morning of average weather conditions. Busi- 
ness men seldom carry much cash on their persons. 
Large givers never have proportionate sums with 
them at a church service. If, in response to an 
appeal, they empty their pockets, they are doing all 
that they can do, or, at any rate, all they will do 
under that system. This is an era of large private 
gifts. Almost every week we hear of someone 
bestowing $100,000 or $1,000,000 on a college or 
library or hospital. The chief dependence of our 
American educational and charitable institutions is 
upon contributions of this character. Is it not 
almost farcical for the Church to endeavor to main- 
tain churches, hospitals, boarding-schools, colleges, 
universities, professional schools, printing-presses, 
and a host of missionaries and native workers by a 
plate collection as an annual incident of a Sunday 



THE HOME CHURCH AND THE ENTERPRISE 185 

morning service? If we are to give the gospel to 
the world, we must raise money for missions as we 
raise it for other big enterprises — by subscription. 
The wisest pastors are calling for pledges instead of 
cash. A man who would unblushingly slip a quarter 
into a collection basket would never dream of sign- 
ing a card for such a sum. We have passed the 
canal-boat and stage-coach days in foreign missions 
as well as in transportation. We must now have 
money in larger sums. Laymen are doing big things 
in business. Why should they not do big things for 
God? They are — some of them; but there are 
others. 

Whenever an effort is made to increase gifts for 
foreign missions, some persons raise a hue and cry 
about the alleged diversion of funds from home 
enterprises. A denominational ecclesiastical body 
refused to permit a missionary campaign within its 
bounds, on the ground that it would interfere with 
gifts for other causes. Yet official reports showed 
that the churches of this district were giving nearly 
ten times as much to home objects as to foreign, and 
two weeks later representatives of a certain unde- 
nominational enterprise canvassed the laymen of 
these churches, without consulting the ministers, and 
secured $300,000. 

There is a great work to be done in the home- 
land, but it is not helped in the least by opposition 
to foreign missions. Giving to world evangeliza- 
tion enlarges the mind, broadens the sympathies, 



i86 THE WHY AND HOW OF FOREIGN MISSIONS 

and so opens the springs of benevolence that those 
who do most for foreign missions are usually the 
very ones who do most for home missions. Mr. 
Jacob A. Riis, who toiled so indefatigably for the 
poor people of New York City, said that " for every 
dollar you give away to convert the heathen abroad, 
God gives you ten dollars' worth of purpose to deal 
with your heathen at home." " A religion/' said 
Dr. Clark, " cannot be really strengthened at home 
by declining to extend its blessings abroad. It is 
a complete misunderstanding of Christianity to sup- 
pose that some Christian church or country, by con- 
centrating its attention and labors upon itself, can 
so accumulate power as to be able to turn in full 
vigor to do its Christian work for others at some 
later date. It was said long ago that Christianity 
is a commodity of which the more we export, the 
more we have at home. It is equally true that the 
less we export, the less we may find at home." 

Appeals should not be based solely on financial 
necessities. The cause is cheapened by too much 
apologetic pleading. The fact that an enterprise 
wants money is not a sufficient reason why it should 
receive it, nor is the begging argument likely to 
secure anything more than the beggar's temporary 
dole. Do not apologize or talk about " the needs 
of the board." The late President Harrison pithily 
said: " The man whose grocery bills are unpaid 
might just as well talk about the needs of his butler. 
Present your need, the needs of the Church, the 




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THE HOME CHURCH AND THE ENTERPRISE 187 

needs of the world, those claims which Church mem- 
bership implies and which are more than life in that 
personal relation with the great Head of the 
Church." 

The emphasis on life service. We should keep 
prominently before the Church the call to life- 
service on the field. The World War showed that 
there is a splendid spirit of self-sacrificing service 
in myriads of young men and women. They were 
unhesitatingly ready to give up business, leave home 
and country, endure every privation, stand in 
muddy, verminous trenches, and face the probability 
of wounds and death — all for their country's sake. 
Many of them will respond to the call to missionary 
service for Christ's sake if they hear it. Numbers 
whom the boards would be glad to appoint drift 
into other lines of work every year largely because 
the claims of foreign missionary service have never 
been personally brought to their attention. 

The prayer life of the Church. Studying, giving, 
and preaching, however, will be of little avail unless 
praying accompanies and pervades them. The for- 
eign missionary enterprise is essentially spiritual in 
character, and the prayers of the home Church are 
a real asset in conducting it. The very largeness of 
the enterprise summons us to a mighty confidence in 
God. The task is stupendous, but " He is able." 

It is sadly true that many professing Christians 
seldom or never pray for the missionary enterprise, 
except unconsciously as they utter the Lord's prayer. 



188 THE WHY AND HOW OF FOREIGN MISSIONS 

What excuse can they give? Foreign missions 
should have a stated place in the private and family 
prayer of every Christian. It already has such a 
place in thousands of homes. Many of the boards 
publish year-books in which missionaries' names 
and some phase of their work appear in connection 
with each day of the year. Such daily remem- 
brance, especially if supplemented by information to 
be found in the yearly report of the board and the 
missionary magazines, will in time give one a sym- 
pathetic knowledge of the whole field and bring no 
small cheer to the lonely workers far away. Eng- 
lishmen exulted in the fact that, at a given hour on 
the day of Queen Victoria's Jubilee, June 20, 1897, 
" God save the Queen " was sung in all the churches 
and on all the ships of the British Empire, so that 
with the progress of the sun, jubilant voices upraised 
the national anthem westward over oceans and con- 
tinents until the mighty chorus rolled around the 
world. In like manner, if Christians in the home- 
land were to lift their voices in prayer for missions 
every morning, the entire globe would be belted 
daily with never-ending petitions to God. 

Spiritual power and missionary zeal. The 
Church may well consider the relation of spiritual 
power to missionary zeal. It is a fundamental 
law of the kingdom that power is given to be used 
for others. The New Testament makes this clear. 
The Holy Spirit was given in order that the 
disciples might become witnesses. Before Pente- 



THE HOME CHURCH AND THE ENTERPRISE 189 

cost, they had no interest in world evangelization; 
afterwards they became evangelists to a man. The 
remainder of the Book of Acts is a wonderful 
record of evangelistic spirit and extension. The 
early Church was preeminently a missionary Church. 

It would be interesting to cite in detail the illus- 
trations incarnated in Ulfilas, Columba, Raymund 
Lull, and Von Welz. Significant also from this 
point of view is the rise of Pietism with its luminous 
names of Francke and Spener, Ziegenbalg, and 
Schwartz. Zinzendorf and Moravianism. Wesley 
and Methodism have their place in such a study, 
for without them we could hardly understand the 
new era of missions which began with Carey. In 
America, the work of Brainerd and Edwards was 
directly related to a new baptism of the Holy 
Spirit. It was not an accident that several of the 
missionary organizations of the nineteenth century 
were born during the great revivals of the first two 
decades, or a mere coincidence that the forward 
movement in missions that characterized the closing 
years of that century dated from the extraordinary 
revivals of 1875-6. The teaching of history on this 
subject is unbroken. Every deepening of the 
spiritual life has been followed by a new effort to 
give the gospel to the world; but there is no record 
anywhere of the Holy Spirit's power remaining 
with any church which did not use it in witnessing 
for Christ. 

Here is one cause of poverty of spiritual life. 



190 THE WHY AND HOW OF FOREIGN MISSIONS 

The Church is living too much for itself. God has 
already given it enough power to evangelize North 
America half a dozen times over. Is it reasonable 
to suppose that he will increase that power simply 
for this purpose? This suggests the remedy both 
for a low spiritual vitality at home and the compara- 
tive failure to support the missionary enterprise on 
an adequate scale. The Church must be spiritually 
quickened. Foreign missions is primarily a spiritual 
movement and only spiritual people will adequately 
maintain it. Dr. Arthur Mitchell was wont to say: 
" The cause of foreign missions goes down to the 
roots of the spiritual life, and we need look for no 
abundance of fruit until that life is enriched." 
When Henry Martyn, as he lay burning with fever 
in Persia, received a letter asking how the mission- 
ary interest of the Church at home could be in- 
creased, the dying saint replied: " Tell them to live 
more with Christ; to catch more of his spirit; for 
the spirit of Christ is the spirit of missions, and the 
nearer we get to him, the more intensely missionary 
we must become." 

Never before has the summons been so impera- 
tive as it is today. Practically the whole non-Chris- 
tian world is now accessible. Men in -other spheres 
are recognizing the opportunity. Governments are 
straining every nerve to influence these awakening 
nations. Business firms are sending their agents to 
the remotest parts of the earth. The Greek and 
Roman Catholic churches are pouring priests and 



THE HOME CHURCH AND THE ENTERPRISE 191 

brothers, monks and nuns into other lands and 
spending vast sums in equipping them with churches 
and schools. Mohammedans are flooding Africa 
with zealous missionaries. Protestant Churches 
should redouble their efforts, that they may mold 
these new conditions before hostile influences be- 
come established. It is not a rhetorical figure, but 
the sober truth that it would take treble the sum 
that the Churches are now giving to handle the 
situation in an adequate way. 

We can do it if we will. Each church should 
immediately consider its distinct missionary respon- 
sibility and effectively plan to meet it. Many 
churches are already doing this, and have inau- 
gurated large forward movements. Almost all of 
the leading communions have undertaken such pro- 
grams. There is a growing conviction that the cause 
of Christ has been straitened, not by the Holy Spirit, 
not by opposition, but only by ourselves. The con- 
ditions that have followed the World War give tre- 
mendous urgency to the summons to the Church. 
We believe, with Father Hecker, that " a body of 
free men, who love God with all their might, and 
yet know how to cling together, could conquer this 
modern world of ours." " We can do it, if we 
will." 

A formidable task. We would not ignore the 
fact that hardly more than a beginning has been made, 
and that the working out of so vast a movement 
as the missionary enterprise will require time. Most 



i 9 2 THE WHY AND HOW OF FOREIGN MISSIONS 

reconstructions of society have come slowly, and re- 
ligious transformations have been no exception. It 
would be foolish to ignore the power of the non- 
Christian religions, foolish to imagine that we are 
seeing the last of Buddhism in Japan and Siam, of 
Confucianism in China, of Hinduism in India, and of 
Mohammedanism in Turkey. The ethnic faiths will 
die hard. It is no holiday task to which we have set 
ourselves. It is a gigantic struggle in which there 
are against us " the principalities, the power, the 
world rulers of this darkness." Need have we of 
patience, of determination, of " the strength of his 
mind," and " the whole armor of God." 

Encouragements. With full recognition of the 
magnitude of the task, we may nevertheless be 
cheered by the fact that reports from widely sepa- 
rated fields amply justify encouragement. Every 
mail is burdened with them. Apart from the rapidly 
increasing number of converts, there are unmistak- 
able signs that a great movement has begun. The 
very fact that the non-Christian religions are passing 
from indifference to hostility and feel obliged to con- 
ceal their coarser practises and to emphasize their 
better features is a tribute to the growing power of 
Christianity. Society in Asia is becoming more 
ashamed of open vice. Standards of conduct are 
growing purer. The character of Christ is univer- 
sally conceded to be the loftiest in history. What 
Benjamin Kidd calls the altruistic ideas of Christian- 
ity have been liberated in non-Christian nations, and 



THE HOME CHURCH AND THE ENTERPRISE 193 

they are slowly but surely transforming them. The 
traveler in those vast continents becomes conscious of 
the working of mighty forces that are creating condi- 
tions more favorable to the rapid triumph of the 
gospel. He is impressed, not so much by the actual 
number of those already converted, as by the 
strength of the current which is sweeping majes- 
tically toward the goals of God. He feels, with 
Gibson, that the situation is satisfactory; not that 
we are contented with ourselves or with our work, 
but that " a crucial experiment has been made. We 
know what can be done and can predict results." 
We see that we are in the trend of the divine pur- 
pose and that " his day is marching on." 

Therefore let us press forward, undismayed by 
the tumult of this present time and inspired by the 
conviction that: 

" God is working his purpoje out, 

As year succeeds to year; 
God is working his purpose out, 

And the time is drawing near; 
Nearer and nearer draws the time, 

The time that shall surely be, 
When the earth shall be filled with the glory of God, 

As the waters cover the sea." 

References for Further Reading 

A Study of Christian Missions, Clarke (13), XI. 

The World and the Gospel, Oldham (6), VII. 

A Better World, Dennett (1), VII. 

Winning the World for Christ, Lambuth (25) Lecture V. 

Some Aspects of International Christianity, Kelman (4), I. 

Money the Acid Test, David McConaughy (26). 



A SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY 

The following list presents a few of the many 
titles which could be consulted with profit in con- 
nection with a general study of foreign missions. 
In order to make the list practically useful it has 
been necessary to restrict it to a comparatively small 
number of books which are for the most part recent 
and easily obtainable either by purchase or by loan 
from libraries of average size. 

The editors wish to express their thanks to Miss 
Hollis W. Hering of the Missionary Research Li- 
brary for her assistance in preparing the list. 

Missions and the New Day 

1. Dennett, Tyler A Better World. 1920. 

Missionary Education Movement, New York, $1.50. 
A study of the religious resources of the world for the pres- 
ervation of peace, by a Christian journalist and observer at 
the Peace Conference. A keen analysis of the effects of the 
war upon Western Christianity and a thoughtful treatment 
of the problems before the Church in its future approaches to 
the non-Christian world, especially the problem of satisfying 
the democratic aspirations of mankind. 

2. Dennett, Tyler. The Democratic Movement in Asia. 1918. 

Association Press, New York. $1.50. 
Brief, attractive, popularly written chapters on the various 
phases of missionary work, on the life of the missionaries 
and the attitude with which they are received by Asiatic 
peoples. A journalist's book full of racy incidents and espe- 
cially useful as a presentation of the missionary enterprise 
for those who have little interest or knowledge regarding it. 

3. Eddy, Sherwood. Everybody's World. 1920. 

George H. Doran Company, New York. $1.60. 
A popular book written after a world tour by the author 
immediately following the war. 

194. 



A SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY 195 

4. Kelman, John. Some Aspects of International Christianity. 

1920. 

Abingdon Press, New York. $1.00. 
One of the most striking of the recent books on Christianity 
and the problems of the world's new day. The author is 
one of the famous preachers of Scotland and America. 

5. Macdonald, A. J. The War and Missions in the East. 1919. 

Robert Scott, Roxburghe House, Paternoster Row, E. C, 

London. 
A study by a well-known scholar of the relationship of social 
and political conditions in the non-Christian world to the 
missionary enterprise. The chapters present brief surveys of 
the situation existing in each great mission field as the result 
of the war. A final chapter deals with the large issues 
which the Church must face as a result of the changes 
wrought by the war. 

6. Oldham, J. H. The World and the Gospel. 191 6. 

United Council for Missionary Education, 8 Paternoster 

Row, E. C, London. 2s. 
Written after the outbreak of the Great War, this book 
presents a thoughtful treatment of the new problems facing 
the Church and presents a brief, masterly survey of new 
missionary problems. 

7. Patton, Cornelius Howard. World Facts and America's 

Responsibility. 1919. 

Association Press, New York. $1.00. 
A vigorous book coming out of the war period and pre- 
senting in a fresh and gripping way new facts which the 
Church must face in its world-wide task. 

8. Speer, Robert Elliott. The Gospel and the New World. 

1 91 9. 

Fleming H. Revell Company, New York. $2.00. 
An important book in the literature of missions in recent 
years. It takes up the large fundamental problems of the 
missionary enterprise in the world conditions following the 
war. 

9. The Missionary Outlook in the Light of the War. Committee 

on the War and the Religious Outlook. 1920. 

Association Press, New York. $2.00. 
One of the volumes prepared by the Committee on the War 
and the Religious Outlook. The book brings together a 
number of studies of problems made by missionary experts 
on request of the Committee. Part I treats of " The En- 
hanced Significance and Urgency of Foreign Missions in the 
Light of the War"; Part II, "The Effect of the War on 
the Religious Outlook in Various Lands "; Part III, "Mis- 
sionary Principles and Policies in the Light of the War." 



ig6 THE WHY AND HOW OF FOREIGN MISSIONS 

Missionary Principles and Practise 

io. Barton, James L. The Missionary and His Critics. 1906. 
Fleming H. Revell Company, New York. $1.00. 
A trenchant reply to criticisms made by tourists, journalists, 
foreign residents, government officials, and others in regard 
to foreign mission work. 

11. Bliss, Edwin Munsell. The Missionary Enterprise. 1908. 
Fleming H. Revell Company, New York. $1.75. 
A valuable reference book for general information on mis- 
sions. A revision and enlargement of the author's previous 
work, A Concise History of Missions. 

13. Brown, Arthur Judson. Rising Churches in Non-Christian 
Lands. 1915. 

Missionary Education Movement, New York. 75 cents. 
Deals with the beginnings and growth of native churches; 
self-support, self-propagation, self-government; the rela- 
tions of the Churches of the East and West; and a frank 
treatment of the question, Shall we propagate sects or found 
churches? 

13. Clarke, William Newton. A Study of Christian Missions. 

1901. 

Charles Scribner's Sons, New York. $1.25. 
A thoughtful volume on missions and mission theory written 
from the modern point of view. 

14. Fleming, Daniel Johnson. Devolution in Mission Adminis- 

tration. 191 6. 

Fleming H. Revell Company, New York. $1.50. 
A highly detailed but interesting study of one of the funda- 
mental missionary problems of our time; that is, the rela- 
tionship of missionary organizations and Western churches to 
the Christians on the mission field and the new churches. 

15. Jones, John P. The Modern Missionary Challenge. 1910. 

Fleming H. Revell Company, New York. $1.50. 
Deals with the activities and problems of the whole mission- 
ary enterprise. The special value of the book is that it 
presents the view of a missionary of long experience on the 
field rather than the view of a student or administrator. 

History of Missions 

16. Moore, Edward Caldwell. The Spread of Christianity in 

the Modern World. 1919. 

University of Chicago Press, Chicago. $2.00. 
Especially valuable for its treatment of the history of mod- 
ern missions in the light of general history. One part of 
the book is devoted to the large backgrounds of the modern 
missionary movement and its problems; another part deals 



A SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY 197 

with developments in the various great mission fields. 

17. Moore, Edward Caldwell. IV est and East. 1920. 

Duckworth and Company, 3 Henrietta Street, Covent 

Garden, London. 
A series of lectures delivered at Oxford by the President 
of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Mis- 
sions. A comprehensive historical treatment of the impact 
of Western thought and institutions upon the Orient. 

18. Robinson, Charles Henry. History of Christian Missions. 

1915. 

Charles Scribner's Sons, New York. $2.50. 
One of the volumes of the International Theological Library. 

Social Aspects of Missions 

19. Capen, Edward Warren. Sociological Progress in Mission 

Lands. 1914. 

Fleming H. Revell Company, New York. $1.50. 
A thoughtful study of the progress achieved in non-Chris- 
tian lands in education, in the struggle against poverty, in 
raising the standards of family life, in elevating the position 
of women, and in general social reconstruction. 

20. Faunce, William Herbert Perry. The Social Aspects of 

Foreign Missions. 1914.. 

Missionary Education Movement, New York. 75 cents. 
Discusses the relation of the individual to society, the vari- 
ous types of the social order in the East and West, their 
influence one upon the other, and the more notable social 
achievements of missionaries. 

21. Lenwood, Frank. Social Problems and the East. 1919. 

Church Missionary Society, Salisbury Square, E. C. 4, 

London. 2s. 6d. 
A unique book in modern missionary literature. It deals in 
a very frank and direct way with the great social problems 
which the Church must solve in the East as well as in 
the West. 

Miscellaneous 

22. Brown, Arthur Judson. Unity and Missions: Can a Divided 

Church Save the World? 1915. 

Fleming H. Revell Company, New York. $2.00. 
A strong book on the situation which faces the missionary 
enterprise as a result of the division among the denomina- 
tions engaged in missionary activities. An argument for 
the largest possible degree of organic union. 

23. Hall, Charles Cuthbert. The Universal Elements of the 

Christian Religion. ' 1905. 



ig8 THE WHY AND HOW OF FOREIGN MISSIONS 

Fleming H. Revell Company, New York. $1.50. 
A conception of the world position of Christianity from the 
modern point of view. 

24. Lambuth, Walter Russell. Medical Missions: The Twofold 

Task. 1920. 

Student Volunteer Movement, New York. $1.00. 
The latest book in its field and the most complete discus- 
sion of medical missions now available. The writer is one 
of the bishops of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, 
who has had long experience both as medical missionary and 
as mission board secretary. 

25. Lambuth, Walter Russell. Winning the World for Christ. 

1915. 

Fleming H. Revell Company, New York. $1.25. 
The Cole lectures given at Vanderbilt University in 1915. 
Deals with the spiritual aspects of missions and the dyna- 
mic behind the enterprise. 

26. McConaughy, David. Money the Acid Test 1918. 

Missionary Education Movement. New York. 75 cents. 
An eight-chapter book on the principles of Christian stew- 
ardship, especially arranged for discussion use. 

27. Montgomery, Helen Barrett. The Bible and Missions. 

1920. 

Central Committee on the United Study of Foreign Mis- 
sions, West Medford, Mass. 60 cents. 
In brief compass this book presents in its second part the 
thrilling story of the translation of the Bible into the many 
languages of many tribes and nations, its circulation among 
them, and gives also a study of Christian literature in gen- 
eral and its use in the work of missions. 

28. A Selected Bibliography of Missionary Literature. J. Lovell 

Murray. 1920. 

Student Volunteer Movement, 25 Madison Avenue, New 

York. 60 cents. 
A carefully classified and annotated bibliography. Valuable 
for pastors and church missionary leaders to use in selecting 
libraries and missionary readings lists. Gives publishers 
and prices. 

29. Foreign Missions Year Book of North America. 

Committee of Reference and Counsel of the Foreign Mis- 
sions Conference of North America, 25 Madison Avenue, 
New York. 75 cents. 
This year-book contains valuable and authoritative arti- 
cles on conditions in the mission fields; a thorough, anno- 
tated bibliography of books and periodical literature on 
missions; statistics; directory of societies; and much other 
helpful information. A useful tool for any class making a 
systematic study of missions in general. 



INDEX 



.Administration of missionary enter- 
prise, 52; financial, 55-56; expense 
of, 56-58; problems of, 58-60; 
budget plan, 60-62; over-special- 
ized giving, 62-64; station plan, 

, A 64-65 . , . . 

Africa, proportion of missionaries 
to people in, 157; unclaimed in- 
habitants in, 158 

Age of acceptance of missionaries, 

83. 

Allahabad, India, bubonic plague in, 
108-109 

"All Souls," Hale's, quoted, 81 

American Baptist Foreign Mission 
Society, 50-51 

American Board of Commissioners 
for Foreign Missions of the Con- 
gregational Church, 50 

Avison, Dr., cited, 108 

Awdry, Bishop, cited, 7 



Bangkok Christian College, 155 

Baptist Church, foreign missions 
board of the, 50 

Barrett, Hon. John, cited, 153 

Beirut, Syria, mission press in, 106 

Bible societies, cooperation of, 104 

Bible translation, 104-107 

Boarding-schools, 84 

Board members and their tasks, 51- 
55 

Board of Foreign Missions of the 
United Lutheran Church in Amer- 
ica, 51 

Board of Managers of the Metho- 
dist Episcopal Church, 49 

Board of Missionary Preparation, 
84 

Boards, the churches and their, 48- 
51; executive committees of the, 
53-55; applications considered by, 
92-93 

Boston, proportion of churches to 
people in, 157 

Boxer uprising, 151, 152, 154 

Brainerd, cited, 189 



Bryce, James, quoted, 23-24 
Bubonic plague in India, 108-105* 
Budget plan, the, 60-62 



Canterbury, Archbishop of, quoted, 

18 
Canton, missionary work in, 145-146 
Carey, cited, 43, 189 
Carlyle, Thomas, quoted, 25 
Cecil, Lord Hugh, quoted, 12-13 
Chalmers, James, quoted, 78-79 
Charity, at home and abroad, 156 
Chicago, proportion of churches to 

people in, 157 
Children, separation of missionaries 

from, 74 
China, proportion of missionaries 
in, 157; unclaimed inhabitants in, 
158; growth of Christianity in, 
173 
Chinese cart, example of, 115 
Chinese Evangelists, 154 
Chinese government, indemnity 

granted by, 154 
Christ, the command of, 33 ff.; ex- 
ample of, in social service, 112 ff. 
Christians. See Native Christians 
Christian workers, proportion of, to 

people in United States, 157 
Christianity, a moral motive in na- 
tional life, 7; a reorganizing 
force, 8; a supernational religion, 
11-16; as a social force, no ff.; 
growth of, in non-Christian lands, 
172-173 
Church, the, _ responsibility of, 25, 
191; establishment of, in foreign 
fields, 44-45; world evangeliza- 
tion supreme work of, 46-47; so- 
cial service of, noff.; support of 
missions by, 183; prayer life of, 
187-188. See Native Church 
Churches, proportion of, to people, 

157 
Churchill, Winston, quoted, 9 
Church School of Missions, 178-179 
Civilization, high type of, developed 

by missionaries, 160 
Clough, John E., cited, 114 



199 



200 



INDEX 



Colleges, 84, 102-104 

Columba, cited, 189 

Communicants, number of, 150 

Conger, Hon. Edwin H., quoted, 
145 

Congregational Church, foreign mis- 
sions board of the, 50 

Converts, genuineness of, ques- 
tioned, 150 

Cooperative work, advance in, 69-70 

Creed and polity of native Church, 

„ *34:i35 

Criticism, 143; from friends, 144; 
from the ignorant, 144-146; from 
the unsympathetic, 146-148; from 
conflicting interests, 148-149 

Cust, Robert N., quoted, no 



force, 4-5; an intellectual force, 
5-6; a moral force, 6-7; a po- 
litical force, 7-10; a spiritual 
force, 10; an international force, 
11; new need for, 17-20; world 
peace and, 23-24; aim of, 42-43; 
churches established by, 44-45; 
need of central agency for, 46; 
task of, varied and complex, 46- 
47; ineffectiveness of independent, 
47 

Forman, Dr. John, cited, 164-165 

Francke, cited, 189 

Fraser, A. G., cited, 114 

Fraser, Sir Andrew H. L., quoted, 
155 



Damrong, Prince, cited, 155 
Darwin, Charles, quoted, 148 
Deaf-mutes, asylum for, 75 
Debt, the question of, 58-60 
Democracy, need for world-wide, 

21-22 
Denby, Hon. Charles, quoted, 150- 

i5*> 152 
Department of Missions of the Na- 
tional Council of the Protestant 
Episcopal Church, 49 
Dispensaries, 109 
Dunlap, Rev. Eugene P., cited, 155 



Educational work, 5, 6, 100-104, 

175 ff. 
Edwards, cited, 189 
Employment of Western-trained 

Orientals, 129-131 
Episcopal Church, foreign missions 

board of the, 49 
Evangelistic work, 97-100 
Evangelists, Chinese, 154 
Executive officers and their duties, 

53-56 
Expenditure, need of increased, 175 



Falsehoods circulated regarding mis- 
sionaries, 149 ff. 

Finance administration, 55 ff. 

Fitch, Mrs. George F., rescue home 
opened by, 118 

Foreign Missions, what enterprise 
is, 1-2; reconstruction force of, 
2-3; benefits of, 2-20, 98-121; an 
economic force, 3-4; a social 



Gifts for missions, 179 

Gilmour, James, cited, 43; quoted, 

_95 f ... 

Gospel, civilizing influence of the, 
37-38; essential elements in pres- 
entation of the, 114 ff. 

Griffis, William Elliott, cited, 4 



H 

Hale. Edward Everett, quoted, 81 
Harrison, President, quoted, 186 
Health of missionaries, 82 
Hecker, Father, quoted, 191 
Hereford, Mr. and Mrs. W. F., 

cited, 1 1 7-1 18 
Higginbottom, Sam, cited, 114 
Holcombe, Hon. Chester, quoted, 

161 
Homes of missionaries, 166-168 
Hospitals, 84, 109 
Hunter, Sir William, cited, 75 



Immorality in foreign countries, 75- 
76 

India, proportion of missionaries to 
people in, 157; growth of Chris- 
tianity in, 173 

Industrial schools, 84 

Insane, asylum for, 75 



Japan, licentiousness in, 75; propor- 
tion of missionaries to people in, 

T I57 

Japanese government, attitude to- 
ward Christians, 7; toward mis- 
sionaries, 16 



INDEX 



201 



Jessup, Dr. Henry H., quoted, 53 



K 

Katsura, Count, quoted, 16-17 
Keith-Falconer, quoted, 94-95 
Kerr, Dr. John G., cited, 75 
Koo, V. K. Wellington, quoted, 5, 

11 
Korea, education in, 6; growth of 

Christianity in, 173 



Lama Temple, 76 

Leprosy, 109 

Life service, emphasis on, 187 

Literary work, 104-107 

Literature, character of non-Chris- 
tian, 106; circulation of Christian, 
essential, 106 

Livingstone, David, quoted, 91 

Li Yuan Hung, Gen., quoted, 9 

Lull, Raymund, cited, 189 

Lutheran Church, foreign missions 
board of the, 51 



M 

McCormick, Frederick, quoted, 148 
McGilvary, Dr. Daniel, cited, 99 
Marriage of missionaries, 89-91 
Martyn, Henry, quoted, 190 
Medical Missions, 38-39, 107-109 
Methodist Episcopal Church, foreign 

missions board of the, 48-49 
Mills, Mrs. A. T., cited, 75 
Ministers, proportion of, to people 

in United States, 157 
Minneapolis, proportion of churches 

to people in, 157 
Missionaries, schools founded by, 5, 
6; authority of, transferred to na- 
tive Church, 133 ff. ; criticism of, 
143 ff.; falsehoods regarding, cir- 
culated, 148, 151, 161; apprecia- 
tion of, by powerful natives, 152; 
confidence shown in, 153; not 
troublemakers, 153; benefits 
brought by, cited, 154; sectarian- 
ism not preached by, 156; alien 
civilization not forced by, 160; 
claim of extravagance of, untrue, 
161; manner of living, 161 ff.; 
hospitality of, 162-163; homes of, 
not luxurious, 166-168; compared 
with St. Paul, 160-171; accom- 
plishments of, 172-173. 
Missionary, the, 37; salary, 65-68, 
126; qualifications, 71, 86-89, 91; 



life on mission field, 72; men- 
tal strain, 72-73; separation from 
children, 74; living conditions, 
74-76; spiritual burden, 76-77; 
heroism, 77-81; selection, 81-83; 
health, 82; age, 83; training, 83- 
85; marriage, 89-91; application, 
92-93; the call to foreign service, 
93-95; task, 96 ff.; evangelistic 
work, 97-100; educational work, 
100-104; literary work, 104-107; 
medical work, 107-109; social 
service work, noff.; the native 
worker and the, 126 ff. 

Missionary appeal, basis of, 39-40 

Missionary education, a campaign 
of, 175 fT.; intensive, 177-178 

Missionary enterprise, administration 
of, 52; responsibility of, 174 

Missionary force, need of increase 
in, 174; support of, 175 

Missionary homes, 166-167 

Missionary movements, debt to early, 
158-160 

Missionary task, scientific study of 
the, 68-69 

Missionary zeal, relation of spiritual 
power to, 188 ff. 

Mission field, life on the, 72 ff. 

Mission presses, 84 

Missions, territory not touched by, 
158; support of, 179 ff.; place of, 
in prayer, 187-188 

Missions and pocketbooks, 179 

Mitchell, Dr. Arthur, quoted, 190 

Mongolia, unclaimed inhabitants in, 
158 

Moody, Dwight L., quoted, 22 

Morgenthau, Hon. Henry, quoted, 
78 

Morrison, cited, 43 



N 

National Council of the Protestant 
Episcopal Church, 49 

Native Christians, difficulties of, 
140-142; superiority of, 154; trust 
reposed in, 155 

Native Church, growth of, 122 ff.; 
self-propagation of, 123; evan- 
gelizing work of, 123-124: self- 
support of, 126-128; self-govern- 
ment of, 131 ff.; creed and polity 
of, 134-135 , , „ 

Native religions not good enough, 
168-169 

Native workers, the, 124 ff.; self- 
support of, 126 ff. 

Neal, Dr., cited, 108 

Nitobe, Inazo, quoted, 5 

Non-Christians, number of, 158 



202 



INDEX 



o 

Okuma, Marquis, quoted, 10 
Orientals, employment of Western- 
trained, 129-13 1 



Paoting-fu, tribute paid by natives 
in, 151 

Pastors, responsibility of, toward 
missions, 182 

Philippine Islands, growth of Chris- 
tianity in, 173 

Prejudice, removing, 27-29, 117-118 

Presbyterian Church, foreign mis- 
sions board of the, 50 

Printing presses, 84, 105 

Publishing houses, 105-107 



Siam, High Commissioner of, cited, 

Siamese Governor of Puket, quoted, 
_ 154 

Social service work, uoff. 
Spencer, Herbert, quoted, 22. 
Spener, cited, 189 
Station plan, 64-65 
Sunday-schools, missionary educa- 
tion in, 176-177 



Taft, William H., quoted, 3-4, 11, 

Technical schools, 102-104 
Tibet, unclaimed inhabitants in, 158 
Training of missionaries, 83-85 
Turkestan, unclaimed inhabitants in, 

158 
Tyler, cited, 43 



Ralph, Julian, quoted, 163 
Recruits, need for, 125 
Religions, native, not 

enough," 168-169 
Riis, Jacob A., quoted, 186 
Ruskin, cited, 30 



' good 



St. Louis, proportion of churches to 
people in, 157 

St. Paul, 169-171 

Salary, the missionary's, 65-68 

Satow, Sir Ernest, quoted, 7 

Schools and colleges, 5, 6, 100-104 

Schwartz, cited, 189 

Sectarianism, not preached by mis- 
sionaries, 156 

Self-government of native Church, 

131-134 
Self-propagation of native Church, 

123-126 
Self-support of native Church, 126 ff. 
Service, the call to, 93-95 
Shanghai, mission press in, 105; 

rescue home in, 118. 



U 

Ulfilas, cited, 189 

United States, proportion of 
churches to people in, 157 



V 

Verbeck, Guido F., cited, 4 
Vice in foreign countries, 76 
Von Welz, cited, 189 



W 

Wang, C. T., quoted, 6 
Wellington, Duke of, quoted, 36 
Wesley, cited, 189 
Women, change in attitude toward, 

due to foreign missions, 4 
World War, the, 12, 16, 18, 19, 77 



Zinzendorf, cited, 189 
Ziegenbalg, cited, 189 



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